The Red Spirit
by xxskyWriterxx
Summary: After a strange incident between him and Buttercup, Butch believes he might be going crazy. The innocent are turning up dead or seriously injured and there is only one person to blame. Butch's world is turned upside down. Butch's POV.
1. Prologue Revenge

He was floating… floating… There was nothing, but there was everything… He was sailing through infinite nothingness, he felt like he was floating in space; no light, no darkness, no sound, no silence, no feeling… There was just nothing… and everything. He knew he existed; his brain was whirring like a busy, overworked machine, but he couldn't feel himself. It was like he was there…and not there… at the same time. He didn't understand. What in the hell had happened to him? Where was he?

He searched his brain in bewilderment; he felt some comfort in knowing that his mind was there… that some part of him was there… and he could sense it. But he didn't know where his body was; and he felt drowsy… like he was trapped in slow motion underwater somewhere. How did he get like this? He must know… he had to…

Then something clicked in his brain. He remembered something; bright white light, unbearable pain and agony; feeling like he was being ripped in two like a piece of junk mail. Something swelled in his mind, filling it up like lemonade into an empty glass; hatred. Loathing blossomed in his brain, obscuring everything else… He would get the ones who did this to him, who chucked him into this strange, almost dreamlike state. They had stripped him from his body, took away the most important thing of his. He was nothing thanks to them… nothing… But… maybe not. Something popped into his brain; he was not nothing. He still had his mind; and his very essence still clung to him like a shadow. He could still get them… ruin them much worse than they had ruined him. He just needed something to carry him… something to contain him… a body…


	2. The Impulse

My racecar zipped down the racetrack in a blur of green, its engines roaring and its wheels squealing, sending up clouds of gray smoke. It was ahead of the other cars; their engines revved furiously as they struggled to pass my green car, but it was too fast. It kept just ahead of them, holding them back like a sheepdog guiding the herd. I laughed triumphantly, clutching the controls in my sweaty hands.

"I'm gonna win!!" I yelled over the roar of the engines. My brothers fought their controls wildly, their red faces shining and their teeth gritted, struggling to overtake me. I just cackled in delight, smirking evilly as I watched the finish line getting closer by the second. 1000 yards… 900 yards…800 yards… So close… I was zooming toward the finish line faster than Brick confronted with shampoo…Nothing could get in **my** way. Not now…

Then one of the racecars behind me, an electric yellow one, let out a deafening roar; its engine revved more furiously than any engine I'd ever heard. Its earsplitting roars jerked me out of my state of triumph, and I whirled around frantically in my seat, sweat dripping down my shirt, my face frozen with a terrified expression. The yellow car zipped forward in a burst of energy, passing the black and scarlet cars that belonged to my brothers, weaving around the others like a golden bullet. Then it caught up to me, passing me, Buttercup laughing maliciously. All that escaped my mouth was a groan, a groan that was drowned out by Buttercup's cackles as her yellow car blasted over the finish line, less than a second before mine.

GAME OVER … GAME OVER… GAME OVER…

I flung my controller down at the carpet with a crash, screaming in rage as those big bold words flashed across the screen. Brick and Boomer, who were sitting next to me on the couch, sniggered as I yanked out some of my jet black hair in fury. Buttercup smirked happily; she had beaten me **again**…

"Are you giving up yet?" Buttercup asked me, twirling her controller in her hands. "That's your 8th loss in a row. Face it Butchie, **I'm** the champion of the virtual racetrack."

Blossom and Bubbles, who were curled up on the floor with Buttercup, giggled.

"She's telling the truth." Blossom said, smiling sympathetically at me. "She really is the queen of that video game; no one has ever beaten her before."

I didn't answer; I growled at Buttercup, my innards twisting with rage. She grinned smugly at me, still twirling her game controller with ease. If it would've been anyone else who was sitting there like a princess, acting snobby at me after her 8th triumph, I would've pounded then into dust so small that it couldn't even be seen with a microscope. But this was Buttercup, the one person that I felt connected to; in a really weird way, but that was that. So I plopped down on the couch with a steel melting scowl plastered on my face, my eyes narrowed and my limbs crossed tightly. Buttercup dropped her controller and plopped down next to me, all the haughtiness gone from her face.

"Don't feel too bad…" she said, patting my shoulder. "I've beaten the pants off everyone who ever dared to challenge me, and you were actually the closest to winning."

I grunted and narrowed my eyes even more, hunching myself down into the couch cushions.

"I'm telling the truth, you know."

I looked at her, my scowl fading slightly when I saw her smiling at me in a non-evil way, her light green eyes shimmering brightly.

"Let's crack open the Coke and call you a worthy opponent!" Buttercup exclaimed, wrenching open the cooler and pulling out a bottle of my favorite drink, opening it with a pop. I felt the drool pooling in my mouth, and I snatched the can out of Buttercup's hands and chugged it down, the bubbly Coke tickling my throat and delighting my taste buds. Buttercup was pretty used to this, so she popped open another can for herself without another thought.

"To Butch, my only worthy opponent!" she exclaimed, holding her can up high, and then slurping away, playfully poking me between my shoulder blades as she did. Brick and Boomer drank from their own cans as well; Boomer spilling it all over his shirt as he did. Bubbles and Blossom sipped from teacups that Bubbles and brought along; they were filled with pink lemonade.

After our little informal toast, a sharp buzzing sound interrupted us; the Hotline. Blossom abandoned her lemonade at once and zipped into our bedroom in a flash of pink. The rest of us followed; I took my Coke along, gulping it down happily and enjoying the sweet bubbly feeling on my tongue. Blossom snatched up the red receiver of the Hotline.

"Yes, Mayor?"

I was barely listening to the Mayor's garbled response; when I'm gulping down sugar, it almost puts me in a trance.

"Car robbery downtown!" Blossom's sharp words snapped me into the present as I drained the last few drops out of the can. "Intersection of 1st and Main Streets! Black SUV! Move out!"

We zoomed out of the windows like firework sparklers; I dropped my empty Coke can before I took off. We soared over the city until we reached downtown; the smell wafting from the Bravo Burgers restaurant below us made me drool like always, but I resisted the urge to zoom down there and grab a snack. Boomer flew in navy blue spirals of light, practicing his air gymnastics as we zoomed toward the intersection of 1st Street and Main Street, Brick glowering at him. As soon as we reached the intersection, we saw the huge black SUV; there was a guy inside, a rotten thief, who was revving up the mighty engine in delight.

"Nice horsepower!" I listened to the roaring engine with a grin. Blossom shot me a nasty look.

"Get a grip, Butch!" she snapped. "Get the robber, guys! Just don't bust up that car!"

Just then, there was a mighty roar and the SUV was speeding away in a cloud of smoke, leaving us all shocked, but only for a second. We bolted after the car in a flash of red, pink, sky blue, navy blue, light green, and of course, emerald green. Buttercup charged up her eye beams, aiming to fry the heck out of that robber, but Blossom slapped her in the back.

"Don't!" Blossom yelled. "Don't ruin the car! We can't destroy an innocent citizen's means of transportation; just think of how expensive it is!"

Buttercup let out a groan and zipped toward the speeding SUV with me following her; the SUV was rocketing down the wrong lane on busy Main Street. Cars were honking frantically and swerving wildly to get out of the way like scared animals. Buttercup and I zoomed into the window of the SUV; we were face to face with the thief, who was burly and grimy, not to mention not too thrilled to see us. But the shocked expression slipped off his dirty mug faster than spilled Coke; he pulled out a pistol and jabbed it into Buttercup's face, his fingers shaking on the trigger. Buttercup laughed.

"Go ahead and **try** it!" she jeered, her eyes flashing fiercely. "I **dare** ya!"

The punk decided not to go for this, so he whirled and turned his pistol on me; the shot rang out like whiplash, smoke billowing from the end of the gun. I felt a little tap on my chest, and suddenly the bullet was streaking away from me in the opposite direction, shattering the windshield with a smash. The robber dropped the smoking gun and shielded his face with his arms as the shards of glass pelted us; the SUV swerved off course, streaking toward the gas station on the left. Buttercup and I barely had time to open our mouths in terror; the SUV was suddenly lifted off the ground like a magic carpet taking flight.

"Got it!" Bubbles' triumphant voice rang out from underneath the car. As soon as the SUV hit the ground with a gentle thump, Brick came streaking through the window in a flash of red, punching the burglar so hard that he sailed out of the other window and crashed onto the asphalt. Buttercup and I followed, surrounding the knocked out thief with the others.

"Ha **HAAA**!" Buttercup guffawed, pointing at the robber. "We're bullet-proof you **LOSER**!"

"Buttercup, he's knocked out." Blossom stated, her arms crossed.

"Who **cares**?" Buttercup replied, doubled over with laughter.

"He can't even hear you!"

Buttercup didn't answer. She guffawed and slapped hands with me, her eyes streaming with delighted tears. I chuckled politely, running my hand through my spiked black hair as Boomer bent over the unconscious robber, trying to ask him if he wanted a Band-Aid. Blossom sighed and turned to Brick.

"Could you take the thief to Townsville jail please?" Blossom asked. "We'll meet you at the house later."

Brick seized the burglar by the collar and took off with him, streaking through the sky like a jet plane.

"Ok, guys…" Blossom sighed. "Let's go home."

I took off eagerly, anxious to drop by Bravo Burgers on the way back, ignoring Blossom's muttering something about a windshield. But we were barely a foot off the ground when a familiar sound rang through the air; the blaring wailing of the Townsville Bank alarm. I groaned; a little longer to put off a double patty bacon burger dripping with barbecue sauce with a heap of greasy fries and a liter of Coke on the side.

"Never mind," Blossom said. "Let's see who's holding up the bank **this** time."

We rocketed off towards the bank, grumbling as we burst through the roof. A gang of masked burglars was there, threatening the bank tellers with rifles as they filled their bags with mountains of cold hard cash. All seven of them turned in surprise when they heard us crashing through the ceiling to land next to them, glowering violently in their faces. They immediately turned their guns at us and hammered away with shots. Bubbles and Boomer just smiled as the bullets ricocheted off of them; I made a point of doing my annoying dancing and singing routine, swinging my hips and grinning maliciously at the dumbstruck villains. Buttercup stuck out her tongue at them in delight. Blossom screeched in fury; the bullets had completely shot her bow off, only tiny little red threads remained. She shot herself at the nearest robbers and slammed them onto the ground in a ferocious flash of pink. I chuckled and followed her lead, frying another burglar with my eye beams. Bubbles took on two thieves and Boomer attacked one, kicking their guns out of their hands and knocking them off their feet. Buttercup turned to the last one with an evil smirk on her face; I couldn't blame the guy for taking a step back. I happily punched the robber I was attacking with all my might; he screamed as I landed one of my best ones on his gut with a thump. One more of my spectacular hits to the head knocked him out cold; his gun slipped out of his grimy paws and he slumped to the floor like one of Bubbles' stuffed animals. Blossom took out two more of them by hurling them into the ceiling with a screech and a crash. Bubbles squealed in delight as she knocked two more burglars unconscious by hopping on their heads like a mad bunny.

"That was EASY!" I shouted, throwing my hands up into the air. "You stupid robbers can rob a bank just as well as Boomer can spell the word 'the'!" (He spells it: 't-h-u-h')

Just then, there was a giant THOOM that knocked me off of my feet and shook the whole bank. I covered my head with my hands as rubble rained down from the ceiling and smoke billowed through the air. Blossom and Bubbles shrieked in terror, and Buttercup looked like she had just discovered that her favorite cartoon had been canceled to make room for Barney in the TV schedule. When the smoke cleared, I heard the shocked gasps of the girls; I sat up and uncovered my head to see what they were peeing their pants about. But when I saw what they were seeing, my mouth dropped open in bewilderment; it was Boomer, lying on the ground in a heap, unconscious and burned all over. The two conscious robbers were gone. Bubbles let out a shriek that nearly ruptured my eardrums and zipped over to Boomer's side faster than if she had been magnetically attracted.

"BOOMER!" she screeched in a voice that would've only been audible to bats if it was any higher pitched. She then seized Boomer's shoulders and lifted him up, shaking him violently as his head lolled limply to one side, as floppy and lifeless as a water balloon. Blossom looked around frantically for the two robbers that were not knocked out yet; they had vanished.

"The burglars threw a hand grenade and split!" Blossom screamed. "After them!"

She, Buttercup, and I zoomed out of the window after the thieves, leaving Bubbles sobbing over Boomer's limp form, and the five knocked out robbers, in the bank. Blossom squinted determinedly as she scanned the street for the bad guys.

"They couldn't have gotten far…" she said. "Keep your eyes peeled, guys."

I gazed down at the street, searching for any trace of the robbers, but I couldn't see anything. Buttercup soared next to me, her eyes darting as she looked around for the two miscreants, muttering angrily in a long stream of swear words and complaints.

"Damn those assholes… stupid hand grenade… when a get a hold of their damn asses… I'll pound the **shit** out of them… rotten bastards…"

I chuckled under my breath, imagining Blossom's reaction if she heard a word of Buttercup's furious ramblings, but she was too busy looking for the robbers even to notice. I was picturing Blossom's head popping off and exploding like a firecracker when…

"I see them!" Blossom's voice shouted triumphantly, pointing at two dark figures dashing down a nearby alley. All three of us zipped down toward the fleeing bad guys; I watched the fury building up in Buttercup's expression like a teapot building up with steam. As soon as we landed in the alley, the two robbers whirled around in surprise; they definitely weren't expecting us. I smirked at their shocked faces and did some of my famous knuckle cracking; they cringed as they heard the bone crunching sounds coming from my hands. But suddenly their shocked expressions turned into evil ones, and before I could think, I was on the ground, my torso wrapped in a thick metal cord, one of the thieves holding onto the other end of it, grinning and flashing his yellow teeth. Buttercup struck blindingly fast after that; she charged at them in a flash of green, punching them so hard that they went sailing backwards and smashing into a dumpster with a crash. To everyone's surprise, they recovered fairly quickly and hopped to their feet, pulling out small laser guns and firing away. Buttercup and Blossom leapt out of range as fast as possible, the jagged yellow bolts barely missing them.

I growled angrily and tried to pull myself out of the cord that wrapped around my upper body like a fat metal snake. My eyes popped in horror; it didn't budge the least bit. I screamed in fury and rolled on the ground, writhing and struggling against the cord with all my might, but it didn't give; it just cut painfully into my flesh. Panic flooded my brain as I fought to get loose; the buzzing of laser beams sounded in my face as they barely missed me. Why couldn't my superpowers break me out? I hollered as someone grabbed my shoulder and forced me upright; my eyes popped open in shock. But it was only Buttercup, who was kneeling at my side and staring at me in confusion.

"I can't get out of this damn thing!" I howled in her face. "I can't break it!"

Buttercup immediately grabbed the cord and pulled, but she had no more luck then me; the cord just bit into my skin harder as she yanked on it. She tried everything, even her eye beams, but nothing could get it off.

"**Shit**!" Buttercup hissed. "How in the hell did those punks get a hold of something that we can't break through?!"

Before I could answer, Buttercup seized me and flung herself out of the range of a laser beam that one of the robbers and had shot at us, cursing under her breath.

"Just fly with the stupid thing on, then!" Buttercup yelled at me. "We hafta help Blossom finish off these stupid jerks!"

She rocketed toward one of the robbers, who had his back turned towards her at the moment, and she rammed him with a spectacular head butt that sent him crashing to the ground, his gun flying off through the air. Blossom delivered one more punch to the jerk's head, and he collapsed onto the ground, knocked out at last. His companion yelled in rage, swung around, and shot a jagged ray at Buttercup and Blossom, who were hit before they could blink. As they screamed in pain, I took off and rocketed at the last robber, my eyes narrowed viciously; this guy would pay for cursing me with the stupid cord and zapping the girls with his dumb gun. Ignoring the discomfort of fighting with my arms tied up, I kicked the robber in the legs, sending him plummeting onto the ground; I melted his gun with a blast from my eye beams. Before he could stand up, I kicked him in head, and he slumped to the floor; I smirked as a wave of triumph shot through my body. I turned to the girls, who were lying dazed on the ground, and prodded them with my feet until they got up shakily.

"Good job, Butch." Blossom said breathlessly, smiling weakly at me. Buttercup grabbed me around the shoulders and rubbed her fist ferociously on my head, giving me some painful noogies; I knew she must have been pleased. Blossom grabbed the two unconscious villains and we shot off to make a deposit at the Townsville Jail.

A while later…

The stupid cord was finally off; Professor had to use his most powerful atomic ray, but I was finally freed. ("The robbers said they bought it at Mojo's yard sale!" Blossom had exclaimed.) Boomer had turned out to be fine; after Buttercup revived him by dumping ice water on his head, all of his burns healed within a few hours, thanks to our Chemical X healing powers. I was allowed to leave the lab, where I was anxious to get away from Bubbles, who wouldn't stop fawning over me and Boomer. (especially Boomer) I flew out of the lab as fast as I could, ignoring Bubbles and the giggles of Blossom and Brick, who were down there too.

"Don't go, Butchie!" Bubbles squeaked. "Don't leave me!"

Brick's face turned red as he guffawed wildly, and Blossom was struggling to keep a straight face. I growled like an animal, feeling the color rushing into my cheeks, and then in a flash of green, Buttercup was floating in front of me, glowering at the four others.

"Shut up, Bubbles." she spat. "Only I get to call him 'Butchie'. It's a torture device reserved only for his counterpart. You torture your own counterpart; Butchie's **my** victim."

Before Bubbles could argue, Buttercup stuck out her tongue, blowing a loud raspberry, grabbed my arm, and pulled me away from the doorway of the lab. We zipped into the living room and plopped onto the couch in front of the TV, Buttercup smirking triumphantly.

"Wow," I said. "Thanks, dudette."

She grinned at me, her light green eyes flashing deviously.

"Don't mention it, **Butchie**." She replied slyly. "I'm an expert at tormenting Bubbles. I've been doing it ever since we were born; I've had a lot of experience."

I smiled at her.

"Don't call me 'Butchie'."

"Too bad, Butchie. The only reason I saved you from Bubbles' wrath was so me and **only **me could still torment you with that."

I crossed my arms and gave her a pout.

"No mercy!" she shouted. "**BUTCHIE**!"

I made my move; I pounced on her like a tiger, knocking her off the couch and onto the carpeted ground with a thud. I sat on top off her and laughed at her, shooting her my famous toothy grin.

Buttercup gave me a scheming smile.

"You my friend," she hissed through gritted teeth. "just made a **big** mistake…"

She leapt out from under me so fast that I spun around in midair, and before I could think, I was flat on my stomach on the ground, with Buttercup holding me around the neck and giving me some more serious noogies, laughing in triumph as she did. I strained to pull loose, but I couldn't budge; Buttercup snickered and squeezed me tighter.

"Stop, stop!" I wheezed playfully, my eyes starting to water. "Turn loose! I surrender; I'm waving the white flag! You don't want to strangle me, do you?"

Buttercup chuckled and let me up, her eyes shining brightly.

"I always win wrestling matches." She gloated, a big smile on her face. "Ha, ha, **Butchie**; you lost to a girl."

"You don't count." I said. "You're an ass-kicking girl."

She grinned.

"And don't you forget it, Buster."

We zoomed up into our bedroom and plopped on the bed next to each other, giggling happily. Through my giggles, I caught Buttercup's eye, and she smiled; I'd never seen her smile like that before, it really looked like a genuine smile. I felt the corners of my mouth lift; I was grinning too. I looked into Buttercup's face; she was my friend, my **best** friend… the only real friend I'd ever really had…

Then, in the corner of my mind, I felt a strange tingling, like there was static electricity buzzing in my skull. I ignored it; maybe I had slammed my head on the ground a little bit too hard.

"C'mon," Buttercup said, her eyes twinkling like gems. She caught my hand and dragged me toward the closet, grinning ear to ear.

"What're you doing, missy?" I asked, playfully pulling myself out of her grasp. "Going to pull your new fiendish instrument of torture out of the closet for a test run?"

"Oh, shut up!" Buttercup shouted jokingly. "I want to show you something."

I made a fake scared face and backed away.

"I **said** it's not a torture device!"

She grabbed the handles of the closet and flung the doors open. Then she started to rummage through a pile of junk on the floor of the closet, chucking stuff through the room as she rejected them. I crossed my arms and watched her, ducking as a pair of lacy blue underwear came flying at my head.

"Ah ha!" Buttercup had found whatever it was she had been looking for.

"Your guillotine sharpened up good enough to use on my thick skull?" I asked sarcastically.

"Shut your pie hole and come over here, punk!" Buttercup ordered jokingly. I snickered and walked over to the closet; as soon as I got to the closet doorway, Buttercup shoved something in my face: it was a blanket. It was a green tattered blanket that was crying for a trip to the washing machine.

"What is that thing?" I said, pushing it away from my face. "An ancient dusting rag?"

"It's my blankie," Buttercup said, blushing furiously and rubbing the filthy thing lovingly against her cheek. "I thought it gave me strength to fight; I don't believe that now; I thing that's dumb… But, I'm still attached to it…

She gave me an embarrassed, crooked smile and stroked the blanket gently, as if it was a priceless artifact; it looked so ancient that you could probably sell it to a museum as some Roman toga, anyway.

"Why're you showing that thing to me?" I asked disbelievingly; it still sounded like a joke to me.

"I was supposed to get rid of it!" Buttercup replied, clutching the blanket to her chest. "But I kept it! It's my secret!"

"If it's a secret, why'd you show it to me?"

"You're my friend. You're supposed to trust friends with secrets."

"I'm your friend?!"

"My **best** friend."

I stared at Buttercup in surprise, my mouth hanging open; she chuckled at me, still clutching her precious blanket like a lump of gold. I looked into her glistening eyes; I never noticed how much they shone when she was smiling. Then…

A swooping sensation swept into my mind, like the feeling you get in your gut when you go down a giant hill on a roller coaster; but I felt it inside my head. My hands flew up to my head in shock; my eyes widened at the same time. Suddenly, a wave of white hot pain swept through my head, my mouth dropped open and I heard a high pitched, almost unearthly shriek. It took me a moment before I realized that the shriek had come out of **my** mouth. The pain scorched me; it felt like my brains were full of wasps, stinging me to death. Nothing was there except for the pain; I dropped to my knees with a thud and shrieked, writhing and squirming and jerking… I caught a glimpse of Buttercup's horrified face in the corner of my watering eyes. Through all the agony, I sensed another weird force in the back of my head; it felt like someone was shoving a block of lead into my skull that was trying to push my brains out of the way, or my brain was being squished in a car crushing machine like a tin can. It was pushing, **forcing** its way into my head; I screamed and twisted on the ground as my brain was squeezed harder and harder and harder…

_The spiky haired boy was lying on the carpet. His eyes popped open and shone with a malicious glow. In front of him, he could see a black haired girl, who was gaping at him in horror, her lime green eyes as wide as moons in her pale face. How good that face would look if it was crushed, smashed into the ground, bleeding and broken like a crumpled paper airplane… The boy's face broke into a wide, toothy grin as he pictured the girl's face on ground, distorted, conked out, and spurting blood… Something inside him needed it… wanted it…thirsted for it. It had to be done. In one strong, fluid movement, he pounced at the girl like a tiger, snarling, his face glowing with depraved delight. She just stared up at him for a second, like a frightened animal, but at the last moment, she dove out of the way, and the malicious little boy crashed to the ground. He leapt to his feet in a flash, growling like a mad dog, scowling at the girl, his eyes filled with revulsion. He leapt at her again… _

Something broke, the pressure on my head was suddenly gone; all that was left was a dull, warm throbbing in my temple. I groaned and tried to get up; as I lifted my head, I realized that I wasn't by the closet anymore; I was clear across the room. I heard a heavy panting and I turned my head; Buttercup was backed against the wall, her eyes looked huge in her chalk white face as she stared at me, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Something was wrong…

"What…?" I stuttered softly, looking at Buttercup in bewilderment. "How… why…? What just happened…?!"

Buttercup remained silent and still as a statue, her terrified gaze still locked on me. I tried shakily to get to my feet; once I was upright and took a small step forward, Buttercup was gone in a flash of green. I stood stock still as I watched the flying tips of her shoes as she vanished from the room.


	3. Attack

"Buttercup!"

"No."

"Buttercup!! Buttercup, wait!"

"Shut **up**, Butch!"

Buttercup had been avoiding me the whole of yesterday after that incident in the bedroom, and she had been ignoring me this entire morning. After breakfast, I managed to corner her, but she still seemed pissed at me.

Buttercup glared at me, her bright green eyes flashing dangerously, and then she turned on her heel and stomped away.

"Buttercup!" I yelled, scampering down the hall after her. "Hey, wait up, Girlie!"

Buttercup stopped in her tracks and whirled around to face me, her arms crossed and a scowl plastered on her face; I couldn't stop fast enough and bumped into her shoulder.

"What part of 'Shut up' don't you understand?!" Buttercup growled, shoving her face in mine. "…**Hmmmm?!** Get lost; leave me alone."

Before she could leave, I zoomed in front of her and blocked her way, spreading out my arms and legs to barricade the doorway to the bathroom, where Buttercup had been heading.

"What's your problem?" I asked her; her scowl grew even bigger. "Why are you being such an asshole?"

"What's **MY** problem?!" Buttercup roared, little specks of spit flying out of her mouth. "What's **YOUR** problem, Butchie?!"

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I was almost certain that it had something to do with her strange behavior in the bedroom yesterday.

"What do mean, 'what's my problem'?" I spat, tightening my grip on the frame of the bathroom door. "I'm not the one freaking out, being unusually crotchety with her 'best friend', I quote, and avoiding him all day! Not to mention running away from me in the bedroom yesterday!"

The color drained from Buttercup's face, but she quickly got a hold of herself and regained her grouchy temper.

"Why do you **think** I ran away from you yesterday?!" she hollered. "You attacked me! Like some dirty crazed lunatic!"

Now it was my turn for the blood to leave my face. I'd never attack Buttercup for real; only in one of our roughhousing games. How was that possible? I never remembered me attacking her; I only remembered being in horrible pain, and then finding myself clear across the room from where I'd started. **She** was the crazed lunatic.

"What in the **HELL** are you talking about?!" I screamed. "I never attacked you! I would **never** attack you; only when we're play fighting!"

"**Are you saying I'm crazy?!**" Buttercup snapped, her face alight with rage. "You attacked me, I'm dead serious! It wasn't play fighting; I could tell! You looked like you were gonna tear my head off for God's sake! Why did you think I was so scared; saw a **ghost** maybe?!!"

Her sarcasm hit me painfully.

"No I **DIDN'T!!**" I protested; she must have hit her head during our battle with the robbers or something. "I SWEAR I didn't! How can you do something without knowing you did?!"

Buttercup stared at me, her face blank.

"What you mean…How?"

"I was hurting, I had this really bad headache; you saw me! And the next thing I knew, I was all the way across the room. I don't know how I got there, but that's what happened!"

Buttercup shook her head, her hand on her forehead. But when she opened her eyes again, they were narrowed, and looking right at me.

"Who was that green eyed, spiky haired little punk that attacked me then? Your **identical twin**?!"

I shook my head this time.

"Nobody attacked you; you're insane."

"**You're** insane…Butchie. How long have you been insane? For as long as you've been alive."

Her words lashed into me like a giant, silver knife, slicing me up like a potato in a food processor. I always knew I was insane, but for some reason, hearing it confirmed by my best friend totally knocked me off of my feet. I stared at Buttercup, my eyes wide. She stared back at me, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at me.

"I suppose you thought it was **funny** to scare the crap out me." Buttercup growled, showing no signs of sympathy towards me. "Well it **wasn't**, you stupid lunatic."

I couldn't say anything; my voice was caught in my throat.

"I'll show you something REALLY funny!" Buttercup yelled in my face; her foot shot out at me before I could react, hitting a body part of mine that really shouldn't be kicked. A cry of pain escaped my mouth as I crumpled to the ground, my hands holding my crotch. I whimpered on the floor, shaking, but Buttercup paid no attention. She stepped over me and stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her, almost cutting off my foot. I pulled myself to my feet, my legs shaking like bags of Boomer's favorite strawberry Jell-O. I stared at the closed bathroom door; the mental pain that slashed into me at this sight was ten times worse than the physical pain shooting through me. My eyes searched the door, my heart sinking down until it splatted somewhere near my gut. Then I turned and ran down the hall, fighting the hot tears that were welling up in my eyes; only dumb babies like Boomer cry. But I looked just as dumb when my foot caught on the edge of the stairs and I toppled, finding myself at the bottom in a few seconds, my whole body aching. I didn't get up; I just lay there, trembling, sprawled across the carpet, my legs on top of the bottom stair. My head spun; I tried to get a grip on my insane self, but Buttercup's furious face swan into my mind, and a choked sob burst out of my mouth before I could stop it. I was thinking about how weird the hall looked when it was upside-down, trying to keep my thoughts about Buttercup locked up, when I heard pounding footsteps approaching me. Perfect.

"Butch!" Brick's voice burst out as he rushed into the hall, his long red ponytail flying behind him. I struggled to pull myself upright; I didn't want to be sent straight to a mental asylum when he saw me, lying on the ground at the foot of the stairs, staring at the ceiling like an idiot. I didn't do it fast enough though; Brick froze in his tracks when he saw me. Damn it.

"What the heck are you **doing**?!" Brick exclaimed as I shakily got to my feet. I got a hold of myself and sat up, rubbing my head were I'd bumped it falling down the stairs, and shooting Brick the finest of my practiced enraged glares.

"What the heck are **you** doing?" I spat, scowling at Brick.

"I heard some banging near the staircase, and I went to go make sure nobody had cracked their stupid head open; but if you want, I can leave you alone next time. It sure would be a lot quieter without you." Brick crossed his arms and glared at me, his red eyes flashing.

I hate arguing with Brick. At times like this, there's only one thing left to do.

"Shut up, leader boy."

Brick looked away for a moment, a horribly triumphant grin on his face; he knew he'd won.

"So what **were** you doing?" Brick asked; I got to my feet, snarling. I knew he wouldn't leave me unquestioned even after winning the dispute. "Dancing at the top of the stairs and lost your balance?"

"I'm not Boomer."

"Ok; you were trying out your new bed?"

"Why would my bed be the foot of the stairs?"

"I never know with you."

"Shut up." I said again, through gritted teeth. "I…I was…" It was time for the Lie Factory to crank out a new product. "I…I was looking to see if the ceiling had any dirty spots."

That was lame.

"Why for the love of Pete would you do **that**?" Brick asked incredulously. "You don't even look for dirty spots on your own face."

"Professor gave me a chore this morning; to check all of the ceilings and scrub 'em if they needed it." I was throwing random things out of my butt now; I just hoped Brick would fall for it.

"Why were you laying on the floor to look at the ceilings?"

I shrugged.

"Better view, I guess."

Brick scanned me; the doubtful expression on his face didn't look too promising. God help me.

"Well, ok…" Brick said, finally breaking the tense silence and giving me a little shove. "Don't kill yourself."

He flew away in a streak of red, heading for the TV; I left out a sigh of relief. I knew he didn't trust me, but at least he was off my case for the time being. As I stalked through the kitchen and towards the front door of the house, I wished it had been Boomer who'd busted in on me. You could tell Boomer that the Mayor was an active terrorist, that Mojo Jojo was the princess of Denmark, or that Bubbles was in love with Adolf Hitler, and he'd believe it without a second thought.

I thrust open the front door and walked onto the front lawn; it was a clear, balmy, sunny day in Townsville. The scents of spring drifted on the soft, warm breeze as I plopped down onto the grass and tightly crossed my legs. Even though I tried to fill my mind with weird images of Bubbles in a wedding dress accompanied by Hitler in a tuxedo, the picture of Buttercup's angry face kept popping in, stronger and more vivid than anything else. I put my head between my knees and tried to picture the Mayor bombing the Twin Towers, but the scene of my fight with Buttercup kept playing and replaying itself in my head; my hands went up to my spiky, black hair and began to yank on it madly. I squeezed my eyes shut; Buttercup calling me insane, claiming that I'd attacked her, Buttercup kicking me, and finally, the slam of the bathroom door in my face. I tried to stop it, but I couldn't; a hot, wet tear squeezed its way out of my eye and crawled down my cheek. I didn't attack her…I **knew** I didn't…But why…?

Then I heard a whooshing sound; my eyes popped open and I frantically wiped the tear off of my face.

"**Butch**!"

I looked up. Blossom was there, floating in front of me with a stern look on her face. My hand reflexively went up to my cheek; that tear had better not still be there.

"Butch, we got a call from the Mayor!" Blossom said, looking straight at me. "Mojo is attacking downtown in one of his new robots! We need to go, pronto!"

I got up and flew after her, Buttercup, Bubbles, Brick, and Boomer following close behind; Buttercup was purposely flying as far away from me as possible. I decided to ignore this, fixing my mind on memories of Mojo as my old dad as I streaked through the sky after Blossom. But even as we approached the towering skyscrapers of downtown Townsville, I found my mind fixed on an image of Buttercup, screaming relentlessly at me and kicking me in the groin. Rotten brain.

Soon Mojo's new dumb robot came into view; it was a huge monkey of course, made of gleaming metal and causing all-purpose mayhem. It crumbled buildings, stomped on screaming people, smashed cars, severed telephone wires, and just generally ran amok. Blossom sighed, shaking her head.

"Do you know how many times he's done this?" she groaned exasperatedly. "..And it always fails. We'll have no trouble, guys. Just try to wreck the robot and not whip Mojo himself."

All six of us blasted towards Mojo's monkey robot like comets; the robot turned its head in surprise. Blossom and Buttercup struck the dumb monkey right on the head, kicking it as hard as they could. Bubbles and Brick punched it in the stomach and sent it clawing at the air as it crashed into the asphalt. I flew straight at the monkey's face; giving it a good whack in the nose would be pretty satisfying. I was smirking my famous toothy smirk, a few yards away from my target, when a huge metal arm came out of nowhere and smacked me; I screeched in pain as I was rammed into the street like a bug. Before I could think, a huge mass of metal (the robot's stupid foot) was pushing on me, grinding my body into the asphalt with bone shattering force. I opened my mouth to yell, but I found it full of asphalt chunks before I could blink. Then there was a violent crash and the pressure was gone; someone seized me under the armpits and pulled me out of the street. It was Bubbles, cooing in sympathy as she scanned my face, which wasn't in the best of states. My whole body was streaked with black asphalt burns and aching all over; my face was scraped and bleeding. I cursed under my breath as I tried to wipe the blood off of my forehead, which was dripping down my face in warm rivers. Bubbles held me softly around the waist, keeping me out of harm's way as I tried unsuccessfully to fix up my battered face. Stupid rotten Mojo.

I glanced at Buttercup and my heart sank and settled somewhere around my stomach; she wasn't even paying attention. She fought and punched the robot with all of her might, scowling, but she didn't even seem to recognize that I was hurt. This time I felt a little anger erupt inside of me; I burst out of Bubbles' arms and flew at Mojo's dumb monkey robot, ramming its knees so it fell down with a crash. I hovered there, glowering at it, wiping away some blood oozing out of a gash on my face. I looked up at Buttercup, to see if she had even noticed my triumph when…

There was a flash of fire, and a cry of pain burst from my mouth. My hands went up to my head, which felt like it was being crushed under an elephant, my eyes watering and squeezed shut. This was odd; the robot hadn't even touched me. I panted, trying to keep my eyes open, the raging pain blazing through my head like a big knife. The pain suddenly seared; I shrieked in agony and clutched my head. The next thing I knew, I was writhing on the asphalt, screaming in agony, my whole body aching all over. I saw nothing, I felt nothing except for the white hot pain blazing in my noggin; it felt like a cement block was forcing its way into my head. It pushed and pushed pushed…and I screamed and screamed and screamed, my body twitching and jerking uncontrollably. Through all of the agony, I realized something; this was the same thing that'd struck me when I was in the bedroom with Buttercup, when she'd claimed that I'd attacked her. Clearly this wasn't good for me.

I fought against the crushing force squeezing my brains; I concentrated every particle of my mind on forcing that thing out. My mouth closed tightly and I trembled, cold sweat breaking out all over me, struggling with all of my might. I shoved…and I felt the pain lighten. I let out a breath of relief and relaxed for a second, but that turned out to be a stupid thing to do. In that moment I wasn't fighting, the pain seared up, and I collapsed, screaming and kicking my legs wildly. It was burning me…

_The black haired boy sat on the asphalt, looking up at a huge metal thing, towering over him like a skyscraper. A maniacal laugh sounded, and the thing leaned down towards the boy, gripping him tightly in its hand and squeezing him like a bug. But the boy didn't fight; he grinned evilly at the metal thing that had him in its clutches. It was on his side, he knew it. His crazed emerald green eyes flashed scarlet for a second, and…_

"**AAAAUGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!**" I screamed with all of my might, thrashing in the grip of Mojo's giant robot, which was squeezing me like a rubber duck. I didn't know how I got there, but I knew I shouldn't be there. I groaned, thrashing around wildly, struggling to free my arms, which were pinned to my sides by the giant metal hand of the robot, which was curled tightly around my waist.

"Hurry, help him!" I heard Blossom's panicked voice cry. I frowned. I didn't need help.

But then it was back; white hot pain tore through my head like a knife, and my mouth opened reflexively, an unearthly, shrill scream bursting from it. I writhed and struggled in agony; my head was surely splitting in half and spilling my brains out.

I couldn't think… I was shriveling up like a burned piece of paper…

_The black haired boy laughed, and his laughter sounded demented; even the robot holding him looked bewildered. _

"_Hey, Daddy-O!" the boy yelled. "Having fun, aren't ya!"_

_He burst into crazy laughter, uncontrollable, frenzied…And everyone was staring at him, frozen. It was like everyone but the laughing boy was stuck in a time warp…_

I jerked violently, grunting in pain. And then I drooped limply, my sweaty forehead touching the metal hand of the robot that was holding my waist. I'd never felt so drained; it was as if I'd just run a marathon or climbed Mount Everest. I strained weakly, but I was too feeble even to sit up straight. I peered through my heavy, half closed eyelids, and with my blurry vision, I saw that everyone, including Mojo in his robot, was staring at me, like a bunch of stupid statues. Rotten headache. I really needed to take some aspirin or something when we got home. At least Buttercup was looking at me now; she definitely acknowledged my existence.

Then everyone unfroze at once; Brick swooped in, grabbed me under the armpits and pulled, and I finally slid free of the robot's grip. Then he flew away, holding me gently in his arms, purposely looking away from me, but he still snuck in a few worried glances. I felt the wind, cooling my sweaty skin, my head lying limply on Brick's shoulder, my tired eyes slowly closing. Maybe I could relax… Then a fresh wave of agony tore through my head, and I began to wriggle, howling in pain. Somewhere in the back of my head, I thought: _not __**again**__… _I thrashed like a fish out of water, and Brick struggled to keep a hold on me, his crimson eyes wide in horror. I pushed with all of might, trying to force the crushing thing out of my brain, but I was too weak…

_The black haired boy was dumbstruck. A redheaded boy with a stupid baseball cap and long red hair was holding him, keeping him trapped like a prisoner. He didn't know who the boy was, but he didn't like him. It was time to break free. He thrashed as hard as he could, struggling against the red boy's grip; the redhead gasped in horror and instantly let go. The black haired boy snickered, soaring through the air and looping away, free at last. _

"_So long suckers!" he yelled, his voice harsh and crazed…_

The pressure was gone…But something was wrong. I felt the air rush past my face and tangle my spiky hair, but I wasn't flying; I was falling. I was falling like a rag doll thrown out the window of the 22nd story, limp, weak, and too feeble to move. I plummeted down, my limbs flopping like rubber, staring at the busy street below me, my eyes watering and stinging in the wind. My brain was fogged with dizziness and my vision was blurred; my heavy eyelids began to droop, too exhausted to stay open…

And then a high pitched scream burst out, and my eyes popped open in surprise. What…?! Who…? Two strong arms suddenly grabbed me, wrapping around my waist and pulling my lifeless body towards them, clutching me against their chest like somebody might do with a baby. I heard a choked sob and the person holding me began to shake; I felt something warm and wet drip onto my face and trickle down. Struggling, I slowly opened my eyes and gazed up at my savior; it was Boomer, sobbing and hugging me like an anaconda would choke its prey.

"Butch! **Butch**!" he cried, bawling into my hair, hot tears cascading down his cheeks. "I KILLED HIM!!"

Over Boomer's sobs, I heard crashing; that robot must be dead by now. There was a zip and Blossom was there, floating next to Boomer, looking absolutely petrified. Her rosy gaze met mine, and her face relaxed, wiping her forehead and sighing in relief.

"He's not dead…" Blossom put her hand on Boomer's shoulder, but he kept sobbing, his tears splashing down like Niagara Falls. "Boomer…he's not…**Boomer**! Boomer, stop!"

I wanted to say something, but holding my eyelids open was tiring enough; I just didn't have the strength. But I tried, while Bubbles, Buttercup, and Brick flew over; Brick's eyes were blank and wider than moons. Finally my mouth fell open and a groan slipped out; everyone shut up immediately and I felt all of their gazes on me.

"You're messin' up my hair…" my words came out thick and slurred, like my tongue was swollen. But this cost me too much effort; my eyes closed and my body sagged.

Boomer gasped, and he stopped crying immediately; I felt his hands groping through my hair, trying to get the tears out. It didn't work too well though. Instead of getting the water out, his hands smoothed it into my hair and my hair gel dissolved; the black spikes of my hair drooped into my face, soft and droopy.

"What are you **doing**?!" Blossom's voice rang out, sharp and disapproving. Boomer held me tighter.

"Fixing Butch's hair; I messed it up! Now he doesn't look sexy!"

If I would've been fully conscious, I would've died laughing; Brick did that for me. I heard a few little giggles from Bubbles, but neither Buttercup nor Blossom said anything. I imagined Blossom staring with blank eyes and a zombie expression with a hint of disgust in it.

"What? What's so funny?"

Boomer: the dumb and confused wonder.

Someone else took hold of me, and I smelled strawberry shampoo; Blossom.

"We're taking him home; he's not well." Blossom ordered, supporting my limp head with a strong shoulder. I heard a zip and we were soaring, the cool air whipping my floppy hair spikes around like thick blades of grass. I couldn't help thinking that Buttercup still hadn't said anything. Did she still hate me…? I sure hoped not…

************************

I was sweaty, it was dark…WHAT?! I sat bolt upright, and my head swam. I felt like I'd just come out of the washer. My hand went up to my throbbing head and rubbed it, and then I opened my eyes. I was in our bed, under the dark green blankets of my section, and the bedroom was dark and stuffy, only lit by the soft glow of a stupid, pink nightlight plugged into the wall. The windows were open to a clear, starry night, the distant skyscrapers of downtown Townsville sparkling, the crickets singing and the faint noise of cars echoing through the humid spring night air. I'd been asleep all day? WTF!

I wiped my sweaty face and threw off the covers, my whole body burning like a hot dog in the microwave. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, preparing to jump out, when I heard voices; my siblings' voices, and I heard my name in the mess of their panicked conversation. This was something I had to hear. It was time to be an actor; I plopped back down in bed and closed my eyes, yanking the blankets back over me. Just when my head hit the pillow, the doorknob squeaked and the bedroom door swung open, flooding the room with the light of the hallway. I froze, almost afraid to breathe, feeling the gazes of whoever just came into the room.

"He's not even **awake** yet!"

A voice burst out of the silence, almost making me flinch in surprise; it was Buttercup, sounding panicked and furious at the same time.

"Buttercup! Calm down!" Blossom's voice chided, uneasy yet aggressive. "He's sick; we have to let him sleep! You want him to get well, don't you?"

Buttercup groaned in frustration, and I pictured her yanking her hair out like I did in similar situations.

"He's not just sick!" Buttercup bellowed. "He's…he's…" She groaned again. "He's not himself!"

There was a moment's silence.

"What…?"

"Didn't you see the way he was acting; how he'd scream and stuff, then be all aggressive and weird, and then just collapse like he was dead! I know he's crazy, but he's never been that crazy!"

"Buttercup…uh, what do you..? What, are you saying this means something…? Or…"

"OF COURSE IT MEANS SOMETHING!" Buttercup sounded almost maniacal at this point. "THERE'S SOMETHING WACKED UP GOING ON! WHY AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO ME!?"

"Buttercup, I **am** listening…" Blossom's voice sounded tiny and quiet; she was probably intimidated by Buttercup's splendid performance.

"SHUT UP! YOU DON'T EVEN **CARE**!!"

I heard a zip and heavy footfalls, crashing out of the room; Buttercup was running away. I swore that behind the stream of profanities that was leaking from Buttercup's mouth, I heard some choked sobs, trying to be suppressed and fighting to break free.

"Buttercup…" Blossom's voice was no more than a whisper. Faint footsteps approached me; Blossom was walking over to the bed. Her soft hand touched me, stroking my sweaty forehead tenderly. Something was leaning on the bed; the springs were creaking.

"Buttercup really does like him…" I felt Blossom's fresh breath on my cheek as she spoke, murmuring to herself. Blossom got up off of the bed and walked quietly out of the room, shutting the door carefully behind her.

My eyes popped open again, dwelling on the conversation I'd just overheard. Buttercup really did like me?! This shone as my beacon of hope as my eyes closed again, and I let my drowsiness close over me.

**************************

Blackness was surrounding me, but it wasn't frightening; it enveloped me like a black, velvet cloak, keeping me safe from God knows what… I floated, basking in these warm, protecting, feelings of refuge… Safe at last, no evil feet could get anywhere near my groin…

Suddenly I felt a discomfort; a white hot stab of pain in my head, breaking into my peaceful sanctuary. What?! I felt it again; it was like somebody was ramming a flaming torch into my head, and it was burning up my brains. I jumped. Then it exploded, flooding into my whole body, enveloping me in agony. My body jerked, twisted, writhed…and I tried to yell, but no sound came out. I was gonna **die**…

_The spiky haired boy's crazed emerald eyes popped open, and he sat bolt upright. He looked around; he was in a big bed, with four other kids, who were all sound asleep. The bedroom was dark except for the soft glow of a pink nightlight, and the air was heavy and sticky. The boy wiped dripping beads of sweat off of his face and wriggled out of bed, rolling onto the carpeted floor like a snake. He smirked, his eyes alight with a fanatical glow, and he crawled away, heading for the doorway of the bedroom; his quarry was elsewhere. Once he was out of the room, he got to his feet and tiptoed down the hall, moving as silently and quickly as possible, snickering to himself; a glint of scarlet flashed in his demented eyes. Creeping like a cat, he slunk into the kitchen. A crash and a little yelp both surprised and pleased the spiky haired boy, and he flung himself into the cabinet, hiding. _

_Peering through the crack in the cabinet door, he saw another boy, one with shaggy blonde hair and sapphire eyes. This blonde boy was staring at a cracked glass on the kitchen tile, looking horror-struck. Then the boy let out a small sob and carefully picked up the glass, kissing it lightly and setting it tenderly in the trash can under the sink. Wiping away a tear, he grabbed a new plastic cup from a shelf and filled it up with tap water. After it was full, he held it up to his mouth and sipped it daintily, his ocean blue eyes closed. Perfect. _

_The spiky haired boy leapt, throwing himself onto the blonde boy, who shrieked and dropped his cup, his face terrified. They landed heavily onto the floor with a crash; the spiky haired boy clamped his hand down on the blonde boy's mouth to stop him from shrieking and waking up the whole neighborhood. They struggled silently on the floor, the spiky haired boy punching, biting, and kicking like a mad tiger, and the blonde boy whimpering and straining to break free. The spiky haired boy knew he was winning; his flying fists and legs hit soft flesh every time they struck, and the blonde boy was crying and quickly weakening. The spiky haired boy let out a crazed laugh and slammed his victim into a cabinet with glass doors and filled with ceramics that rained down and shattered on the blonde boy's limp form. Soon there was blood everywhere; seeping out of the battered blonde boy, pooled on the tile floor, and splashed all over the walls and the cabinets. The spiky haired boy grinned triumphantly, seized half of a broken glass plate, and cut deep into the blonde boy's flesh with the sharp edge; he writhed and let out muffled screams. The red flash shone in his maniacal eyes again as he pressed harder, sliced deeper; he'd always wanted to know what someone's intestines looked like. Maybe like big, slimy worms. He cut deeper, the blonde boy shrieked and thrashed like mad. Deeper…deeper…__**deeper**__…_


	4. The Accusation

My body jerked and I tripped and fell onto the floor, landing heavily onto my face; I felt something sharp slice into my hand as I smashed onto the tile. I opened my eyes and looked at my stinging hand in the darkness as my head throbbed; it was drenched in a dark liquid that was dripping slowly off and onto the floor. What? What on Earth was going on? Last thing I knew, I was in my section of the bed in our room, dreaming and thinking about Buttercup. I glimpsed some familiar white cabinets in front of me as I shakily got to my feet; what the hell was I doing lying on the kitchen floor, my hand cut up and bleeding all over the place? I held my non-cut hand up and my eyes popped when I saw that it was covered in blood too. **What??** That hand wasn't even hurt! My heart leapt when I saw more blood on the floor, shining in eerie dark pools on the white tile floor. I was panicking now; I whipped around, stepping over half of a ceramic plate that was also coated in blood on its broken side. My hammering heart nearly came out of my mouth and I froze in horror.

It was Boomer.

He was lying sprawled on the floor, gallons of blood pouring out of him and covering the floor around him, his limbs bent out in weird angles. His eyes were closed most of the way so that only a white strip of his eyeball was showing, and his face was ghostly pale, contrasting sharply to the dark blood that drenched him from head to toe. As if this sight wasn't unpleasant enough, there was something a zillion times more gut wrenching about it; the huge cut on his stomach. Huge was not an understatement in the very least; it looked like someone had slashed open his belly as if he were a dead frog being dissected in a lab. His pale skin was torn like paper, and blood was oozing out of the gaping wound; my stomach heaved when I swore I saw something light, slimy, and pulsing inside of the gigantic gash, like some kind of revolting organ squishing around. Boomer's body looked completely still and lifeless, blood drenching the whole room and for some reason, broken dishes littering the kitchen floor.

My knees quavered like rubber, and I collapsed onto the bloody ground, retching all over it, the strong, salty scent of blood making me even queasier. Hot tears poured down my face as all of my meals of the day came gushing out of my mouth, tasting like acid and just plain shit. I vomited and vomited until there was nothing left in my stomach; I lay on the floor, trembling like a leaf, covered in blood and my own barf. My brain swam… but…Boomer! Maybe he wasn't dead! Not daring to look up again, I stared at the sea of blood and barf on the floor and gathered up every tiny speck of my feeble strength.

"Help…**help**…" I tried to shout, but it sounded like somebody yelling in slow motion. I gulped, choking the acidic crap down my throat and taking a deep breath.

"**HELP!!!**" this cry burst from my mouth, terrified and shrill. "**HEEELLP!! SOMEBODY!** **PLEASE! HELP, HELP, HELP, HELP!!!**"

I let out the loudest scream I could manage, and it worked pretty well, considering I put all of my horror into it. "**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!**"

And then I crumpled onto the blood-spattered floor, my body aching with exhaustion, my skin clammy and sweaty and my empty stomach churning noisily. Somebody come…somebody please come… **please**…

"**HELP!**" I bellowed, channeling all of my remaining strength into getting somebody awake. As my head thumped limply onto the red stained tile, I heard a few screams from upstairs, and the frantic scrambling sounds of someone throwing themselves out of bed and charging down the hall; multiple people actually. They crashed down the stairs and skidded to a stop in the kitchen doorway; it was Blossom and Buttercup. They looked disheveled, with their frizzy bedhead and their crooked pajamas, their eyes wide and hysterical in their pale faces.

"What…? What's going on…?" Blossom demanded, her words slurred together in her panic. She scanned the kitchen for a brief second and her jaw dropped, her eyes nearly popping out of her head. Her hands flew up to her face and she shrieked, a bone chilling, shrill shriek that sounded more like Bubbles. Even after the incredibly long cry was over, it still lingered in the heavy, sticky air, echoing through the house like a ghost's whisper. While Blossom was putting on this impressive display, Buttercup was utterly speechless, her face frozen in terror, her chalk-white skin looking sort of green; I couldn't blame her there.

"Omigod, omigod, **OMIGOD!!**" Blossom screeched, zooming over to Boomer's lifeless form, wringing her hands in distress. She took one good look at him and shrieked again, zipping in horrorstruck circles over his body, so overwhelmed with repulsion and terror that her brain wasn't working right. Buttercup was still silent and staring; I gazed weakly up at her through my half-closed eyelids. My heart leapt into my throat and stopped. It wasn't Boomer she was staring at; it was me. And stare at me she did, her eyes piercing with hate, her expression disbelieving and enraged at the same time, her mouth hanging slightly open. What…? My brain was too groggy to work right…Maybe I was hallucinating.

**Blossom's** brain, however, finally straightened out a little by now, because she yelled at Buttercup to get the Professor while she grabbed the phone and punched in 911 in a panic. Blossom was screaming at the people on the phone when Professor, Brick, and Bubbles came charging into the room. Exactly how they reacted, I don't know, because my vision faded into an inky haze and the sounds became faint and slowed, as if I was hearing them from ten feet underwater. The next thing I knew, I was jolted back into full consciousness by somebody gripping my arm tightly and shaking it roughly, and it flopped like a rubber toy arm. I half opened my saggy eyelids, and I glimpsed someone shouting frantically at me through my blurred vision, but I could barely make out what they were saying. The kitchen was bathed with white light now, and a whole bunch of people in white uniforms were darting around, carrying stretchers and other medical stuff. I moaned and blinked a few times, my whole body aching with pain and exhaustion. Now I saw that the person shaking my arm was the Professor, looking completely terrified.

"**Butch!** Butch, son, are you all right? Are you hurt?" he asked in a panic.

"My …hand…" I groaned, holding up my cut up hand, which was still bleeding freely, bright red blood pulsing out of the gash and trickling down my wrist. Moaning, I slumped onto the floor, my head throbbing and my head spinning.

"Should we take him too?" I heard a gravely, rough voice say; one of the medics I guess.

"Yes" Professor replied. "Take him."

Strong arms curled around me and gently lifted me up, setting me down on a white stretcher. The worried gaze of the Professor looking at me was the last thing I saw before I slipped into darkness.

***********************

My eyelids felt as heavy as slabs of steel, and my whole body ached, especially my head. What was going on; where was I? I struggled for a moment, and I was suddenly blinded with hostile white light. Moaning, I shielded my eyes with my hand and squinted at my surroundings. I was in a white bed with white sheets in a white room, bathed in harsh white light from rectangular lights in the white ceiling; it was way too white. I hoped I could find out who the designer of the room was, so I could sue them when I went blind from all of the whiteness. I squinted harder, narrowing my eyes as much as could without losing my vision, and I noticed a few other things in the room; some clunky looking hunks of beeping machinery, a hideous little table beside my bed with a women's fashion magazine on it, a stretcher on wheels in the corner, and a desk across the room with an outdated computer sitting on it and a sleek metal chair beside it. I realized where I was in an instant, my heart sinking in despair; the hospital. I hated hospitals.

I pushed the white blankets partway off of me so I could examine myself, and I looked pretty intact. I was clean, no longer covered with blood and vomit, my injured hand was bandaged, but I was wearing a thin yellow gown with little pink bunnies printed on it, which was only held on by a thin strap in the back, leaving me feeling practically naked; they'd stripped me of my regular pajamas when I was unconscious, even my underwear. And then they'd shoved me into this stupid dress. If you're wondering why I hate hospitals, there's one of the reasons. Scowling deeply, I pulled the blankets back over myself, hoping nobody would make me get out of bed so I'd be displayed to the public in this horrid state. Just then, somebody opened the white door of my room with a squeak and walked in; it was a doctor, maybe in his upper-forties, with a long white coat, short brown hair with a few silver streaks, and thick, black glasses. He took a look at me and his face broke into a smile.

"Oh, good, boy…You're finally awake. We've all been worried…"

Now, just how long had I been asleep? I asked the doctor, who introduced himself as Dr. Reynolds, just that question.

"Just about a day, son." Dr. Reynolds replied, scribbling down something on a clipboard he was holding. "It is the night after the night that we got your call. Are you feeling all right? Anything hurting?"

"My whole rotten body hurts. But I got a really bad headache and I'm kinda dizzy…"

"I'll give you some medication in a bit." Dr. Reynolds stated, sitting down on the edge of my bed. "Now drink this."

He handed me a cold glass of water and I gulped it down thirstily, just now realizing that I was hungry too. What I really needed was a trip to Bravo Burgers.

"I'm hungry." I said, handing the empty glass to Dr. Reynolds.

"I'll get you something to eat after we finish our little talk."

A little talk?

"Am I in trouble?"

"Of course not, boy. " Dr, Reynolds said, chuckling slightly. "We would just like to know what happened the night your brother was injured. I understand that you were the one who called for help?"

"BOOMER!" I nearly screamed. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten him. "Is he alive..?! Is he okay…?! What…?"

"He is certainly alive, but he is in some type of coma. He lost quite a bit of blood, and his organs were damaged. That wound of his is not a minor one, but we think he'll be all right in while. We sewed up his wound the best we could, and we'll just hope for the best."

"Yeah…no transfusion because have our own unique blood type…"

Dr. Reynolds nodded.

"Just tell me what happened that night…Anything you remember about how he got hurt."

I searched my brain for a second, and then I realized that I didn't know how he got hurt. I remembered being asleep in my bed one minute, and then being on the floor in the kitchen with the already injured Boomer. I had no idea how I got there.

"I…I don't know." I said. Dr. Reynolds raised his eyebrows.

"You were there, boy…"

"I'm Butch."

"All right then…You were there, Butch. How can you not know what happened to him?"

"I swear I don't! I was sleeping in my bed, and then when I woke up, I was on the kitchen floor, all bloody, and there was Boomer!"

My stomach began to churn again as I remembered the details of that night.

"How do you think you ended up in the kitchen?" Dr. Reynolds asked calmly.

"I dunno…sleepwalked?" I was starting to get irritated with this questioning session. Dr. Reynolds scribbled some notes down on his clipboard.

"You played no part in the injury of your brother? No part at all?"

"Of COURSE I didn't have a part!!" I nearly screamed with indignant anger. Who did this guy think I was, a murderer, slaying my own brother? "Do ya think I stalked him at night and took a knife to him or something?! He's my brother!"

Unfortunately, my little showdown didn't seem to touch Dr. Reynolds at all; he remained infuriatingly calm.

"Mmm hmm…" he murmured, scrawling something else on his clipboard and looking me right in the eyes after he was done, his dark stare penetrating. "And how did you get that cut on your hand, Butch?"

I stared at my bandaged hand blankly. I had no idea; I'd just woken up and found it bleeding. I had just opened my mouth to tell him that, when he cut across me.

"In the kitchen, we found this."

Dr. Reynolds lifted up a Ziploc bag from his lap that I hadn't noticed before; in it was that half a ceramic plate that I'd stepped over that night in the kitchen.

"It's a stupid plate; so…?" I scoffed.

"We found fragments from this broken plate in the stomach wound of Boomer. And on the plate, we found something very interesting… a hand print; a hand print without any fingers."

I felt the blood drain from my face.

"You were the only one in that kitchen that night besides Boomer who had no fingers. And you and I are sure that Boomer didn't cut himself."

Dr. Reynolds' dark, penetrating stare pierced deep into my eyes as he spoke, his eyebrows raised in a suspicious way. My mouth fell open.

"Perhaps he bothered you during the day and you wished to get revenge?"

"What… **no…**" I sputtered, unable to visualize it. I did not slice up my own brother; that I was sure of. "I d… I didn't do it…I** swear**…I wouldn't…I'd never…"

"It's not play time, little boy." Dr. Reynolds' sudden serious, hostile tone surprised me. "What you did to your brother was no friendly little punch in a play fight. You nearly killed him, and he just might never come out of that coma. You **killed** him, little boy…"

"NO I **DIDN'T!!**" I screeched, unable to hold my fury and disbelief in for a second longer; this guy was calling me a murderer to my face. "I DIDN'T **KILL** HIM, I DIDN'T SLICE HIM UP; I **DIDN'T!** I WOULD **NEVER** SLAUGHTER MY OWN BROTHER; **NEVER!!**"

Dr. Reynolds stared at me, his glare dark and piercing, his black eyes looking like shadowy tunnels or bottomless pits; but I held on. I fixed my face into the best scowl I could manage, then I narrowed my eyes and glowered right back. For a moment we just glowered at each other, and then Dr. Reynolds swiftly got up and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"**HEY!!**" I hollered after him, still burning with fiery waves of indignant anger. "You said you'd get me food and some drugs, you **ARSE**! I'm gonna sue; you hear me?! **SUE!!**"

He didn't come back though, and I sat in the white bed scowling at the door, panting and shaking with fury, my emerald eyes bloodshot. That stinking, rotten, cruel, vicious… I was picturing myself slicing **Dr. Reynolds** up with a knife when the door was flung open so hard that it almost popped off of its hinges. I was suddenly engulfed with arms, hair, the scent of strawberry shampoo, and wet tear drops.

"**BUTCH**!! Oh, Butch…"

"Omigod, I'm **so** glad you're ok…"

"Don't do that again; you scared the **crap** out of me…"

Blossom, Bubbles and Brick ran right up to me, hugging me, patting me on the back, and all talking at once. Buttercup was there too, but she was all the way across the room, leaning against the white wall, watching me out of the corner of her eye. Bubbles sobbed, big, wet tears rolling down her cheeks as she threw her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. I didn't object like I usually did; I just sat there, still trembling and staring at the door in fury. Everyone must've noticed, because they all stopped fawning over me and took a step back, looking worried.

"Hey dude, what's wrong?" Brick asked. "You look pissed."

I closed my eyes, still glaring, scowling and trembling in rage.

"That…That stupid rotten **arse**…that…th…"

"Wait… What stupid rotten arse?" Brick asked, looking concerned. Blossom glared ferociously at us, undoubtedly for our use of colorful language. But I didn't care.

"That damn Dr. Reynolds bastard…" I hissed viciously through my teeth, my emerald eyes open, narrowed, and flashing dangerously. "He…"

"Dr. Reynolds isn't so bad." Brick interrupted. "We talked to him before; he seemed ok."

"**No he's not**…" I growled. "He...he… he said that **I**…murderer…stupid handprint… fucking…damn…**arse**…"

I was so angry that the jumbled words just tumbled out of my mouth.

"What? What're you..?"

"**HE SAID THAT I WAS THE ONE WHO SLICED UP BOOMER!!**"

I sat there in my bed, shaking uncontrollably, sweat trickling down my back and soaking my stupid gown; everyone else just stared, in a state of complete shock.

"No… he couldn't…Wow; I guess he really **is** an arse." Brick shook his head in disbelief as he spoke, sympathizing with me. "But how could…?"

"How **could** he!?" Bubbles gasped, a few shining tears crawling down her cheeks. "Boomi's your brother! Why would you want to hurt him?!"

"I wouldn't; I SWEAR I wouldn't…"

"I **know** you wouldn't…" Blossom said, slipping her hand under my chin and gently lifting my head up so she could look into my eyes. We stared at each other, until I felt hot tears welling up in my eyes and I brushed them away, sniffing. I hated those traitor tears.

"It's ok…" Blossom said softly, patting my shoulder as I buried my face in my hands. "That guy is a complete arse."

'Arse' coming from Blossom's mouth?! Had she gone insane?! A moment of silence followed, and everyone, including me, stared at Blossom with wide eyes; she chuckled.

"There's no other word more appropriate to describe him." She explained briefly, shrugging and smiling.

"Totally." Brick beamed at his counterpart, obviously pleased.

"C…can you get me out of this damn place, **please**?!" I pleaded, looking Blossom right in the eye. "I hate hospitals! I'm not even really hurt and they stripped me and rammed me into this thing!"

I did one of the bravest things I'd ever done; I yanked up my blankets and exposed the paper thin, yellow gown with pink bunnies that I was wearing. Well, if it got me out of the stupid hospital, it would be worth it. Everyone just looked horror-struck for a moment, and they broke into suppressed smiles, struggling to keep straight faces. Rotten, stupid doctors…

"I mean, those doctors stripped me butt-naked while I was still unconscious, and they forced me into a dress! They even took my underwear; wanna see?"

"No, no, we don't need to see; we believe you." Blossom said quickly, shaking her head. "Let's get you out of here."

"Heck, yeah!" said Brick, chucking to himself. I was lifted out of bed by Brick and carried away into the waiting room, Blossom, Buttercup, and Bubbles flying alongside him, my horrid attire publicly exposed for all to see. Oh, God, **help** me… No one in the waiting room said anything, though. We met up with the Professor, who cried out loud in relief and scooped me up in his arms; I held onto him gratefully. He was definitely the closest thing to a good dad that I'd ever had.

"Oh, son, I'm so glad you're all right!" he cried, holding me tenderly against his chest and stroking my spiky hair in a loving, caressing way.

"I'm ok, daddy-o." I replied, basking in all of this fatherly attention that I'd never experienced before. "But tell those stupid doctors to give me my clothes back! I'm stuck in this rotten dress!"

If anyone could convince those disgusting doctors, it would be my dad.

"Don't worry; I brought some spares with me."

My heart gave such a leap of joy and relief that it nearly shot out of the top of my head. I seized the spare clothes from Professor's hand and ran into the bathroom across the hall, blissfully ripping off the hospital gown and pulling on my underwear, shirt, and pants. I itched my bandaged hand before running out of the bathroom and zipping back into the waiting room, as happy as Boomer with a new stuffed animal. Boomer…

"Professor, is Boomer gonna be ok?"

Professor's happy, relieved smile slid off of his face like syrup and was replaced by an anxious expession.

"Well, is he?"

Professor sighed.

"I'm sorry to say that I truly don't know. The doctors said that they've done all they can do for him. We just have to wait and see if he comes through."

Bubbles let out a choked sob and both her sisters embraced her comfortingly. I sighed and glanced at Brick; he was staring at the ground in a gloomy way, and I swore his eyes were shining with contained tears. There was a moment of silence between all six of us, all of our hearts heavy with grief, despair and hopelessness, wishing with all our might that Boomer would jump out of his coma and start singing that annoying song from a stupid hand clapping game that he'd learned:

_Miss Susie had a steamboat, and the steamboat had a bell!_

_Miss Susie went to heaven; the steamboat went to-_

_HELLO, operator, please give me number nine!_

_And if you disconnect me, I'll kick you from-_

_BEHIND the 'friderator, there was a piece of glass!_

_Miss Susie fell upon it, and broke her little-_

_ASK me no more questions; I'll tell you no more lies!_

_Miss Susie's in the kitchen, making her mud pies!_

No matter how much this song annoyed the heck out of everyone, and earned Boomer a few lectures from Professor and Blossom about inappropriate language, ("But I didn't actually **say** them!" Boomer would retort.) I really missed it right now. All I wanted was for him to be ok…

"Excuse me, Dr. Reynolds." Professor was saying. My head jerked up in surprise at the sound of that familiar, horrid name. "My children and I would like to see Boomer; do you think that would be all right?"

"I suppose…" said Dr. Reynolds quietly, who was standing beside Professor and staring right into my eyes with his dark, piercing gaze. "Please follow me…Just I must order everyone to touch nothing; our equipment is rather expensive."

**Equipment?!** What about our **brother?!** Dr. Reynolds continued to shoot dirty looks at me as he led us down the hall with stiff strides, and I shot them right back. He whipped his head around when we reached a white door at the end of the hallway, turned the knob with a squeak, and swung the door open. And there was Boomer. My heart expanded into my throat and nearly choked me with sorrow when I saw him.

Boomer's gaping wounds were bandaged up, the bandages around his torso showing under his thin pink hospital gown. His shaggy blonde hair was tousled and untidy, and his skin was pale and shining with sweat. He was stuck all over with tiny little needles that were hooking him up to a bunch of beeping, flashing machines that surrounded his white hospital bed like the shining Townsville skyscrapers on a starry night. His eyes were completely closed in an almost peaceful way, and his mouth was hanging slightly open as he breathed so faintly that we could hardly tell that he was breathing at all. The only sounds in the room were the drone of the life support machines and the slow, steady beeping of the heart monitor, the glowing yellow lines zipping up and down on the green screen like jagged peaks and rocky valleys.

Bubbles immediately burst into tears which cascaded down her already tearstained cheeks like Niagara Falls after the spring thaw. Blossom put her arms around her blonde sister, a few tears crawling down her cheeks and leaving shining tacks. Buttercup put her hand up to her mouth and stared. Brick did almost the same thing, though he reached out and grabbed hold of Professor's pant leg for reassurance. I swallowed hard and slowly floated over to Boomer's motionless form, not showing my grief, but crying harder than Bubbles on the inside. Just as I approached the bed:

"Get back, boy." Dr. Reynolds' stern voice snapped at me like a whiplash, but I cursed him in my head and ignored him, floating closer still. "I said, get back! Didn't you hear me tell you not to touch anything?! That equipment is worth more than you'll ever earn in your lifetime!"

The nerve of that rotten arse.

"Who said I'm gonna touch the stupid equipment?" I snarled, glowering at Dr. Reynolds and catching hold of Boomer's sweaty, clammy hand. Dr. Reynolds let out a cry of rage but I ignored him, instead gazing helplessly at my lifeless brother, holding his limp hand firmly in mine and pleading the powers that be to make him all right. I wanted more than anything to hear about Miss Susie's steamboat going to hell, those annoying words bursting from the mouth of Boomer, kind spirited, and his eyes glistening like the sea on a sunny day. A hot tear leaked out of my eye before I could stop it and trickled down my cheek. Blossom, in her frenzy to abide by rules, grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me away from Boomer, his clammy hand slipping out of mine and landing limply on the white bedcovers.


	5. Insanity

Professor's little white car bumped along, speeding away from the Townsville City Hospital and through the busy downtown streets, flooded with harsh white streetlight glow and dancing rainbow lights of neon store signs. The sky was a velvet black curtain crusted with glittering stars, twinkling and dancing like the fairy glitter on Bubbles' Halloween costume. The huge skyscrapers towering high over the roads were sparkling too, as if all of their glowing windows were gems. My window was open a crack, and the cool, fresh night air gusted through it and circled us, ruffling Blossom's ponytail, fluttering Brick's baseball cap, trembling Bubbles' pigtails, and whipping my jet black spikes. Buttercup's short hairdo barely moved at all, and even though I tried to divert my gaze, I found myself staring at the back of her head, feeling hurt that she was sitting clear across the car from me and purposely looking away. The lump hard and tight in my throat, I swiftly turned away and stared out the window, watching some idiots in the beaten pickup next to us that were blasting their tunes, laughing drunkenly, throwing cigarette butts out their windows, and serving dangerously. I recognized the song they were playing as one of the tracks on my party mix, so I concentrated on the music, silently singing along, tapping my hand lightly on the seat in rhythm. As much as I tried to busy my head with other things, the images kept on popping back; Boomer, bloody and mangled on the floor, Buttercup, glaring at me with hatred filled eyes, Dr. Reynolds, openly accusing me of attacking my own brother. I closed my eyes, letting out a shaky breath; stupid, stupid, **stupid**… I hated Dr. Reynolds; I hated him, I **hated** him. Stupid arse…

Then my innards twisted uncomfortably; he hadn't been pointing fingers blindly. No matter how stupid Dr. Reynolds was, he had proof, real proof. The handprint…My head spun and I felt hot tears fill my eyes as I fought to keep them in. But it couldn't've been **me**…I was sure about that. How could somebody do something without knowing they were doing it? My little dumb mind spun helplessly; I was positive I hadn't been prowling around at night, knifing my brother. I'd been sleeping, exhausted in bed…but I had woken up in the kitchen! I wrapped my arms around my knees and curled into a little ball on the car seat, my eye shut so tightly that I started to see colored spots, swirling like fireworks inside my eyelids. None of it made sense; maybe the murderer or whatever had dragged me down to the crime scene after he cut up Boomer, and then pressed my hand to the plate to make it look like I'd done it. My body relaxed, my eyes opening slowly, my limbs loosening a bit, and my mind clearing. Breathing deeply, I let my legs dangle over the edge of the seat, and I gazed out the window again, watching the millions of little stars glitter in the night sky, winking down at me like tiny, sparkling eyes; friendly sparkling eyes. I'd been framed; now that made sense. Too bad nobody believed me. After all, I didn't have any solid evidence to support **my** theory. Oh, crap… I wished that I was a detective, or somebody who could get me out of this mess; first Buttercup, now Boomer? A shiver ran down my spine, and I tried to ignore it by fixing my gaze firmly on the winking stars.

"P...Professor?" Bubbles' trembling voice broke my train of thought, and it slid off of the tracks and plummeted down into a giant pit, smashing into oblivion at the bottom. "Will…?" She hesitated, and then spoke quickly. "…Will Boomer be ok?"

Professor sighed, worry lines creasing his face in the glow of the streetlights, his gaze still fixed on the road as he gripped the steering wheel tightly.

"I don't know, sweetie…" he replied softly.

"Don't the doctors know?"

"No they don't. Boomer's in a coma, honey. They just have to support him well and hope he pulls through all right."

I watched Bubbles as she looked toward the ground, tears dripping out of her eyes and shining on her cheeks. Every eye in the car was upon her, with the exception of Professor's, expecting to see an explosion of drama.

"But…but…" Bubbles said softly, and then her voice exploded into a sob choked cry. "...What if he **doesn't** pull through all right?!"

A chilling silence hovered in the air, disrupted only by Bubbles' fast breathing and choked sobs. Professor sighed again.

"Bubbles, don't worry; he'll be fine."

"But what if he's **not**?!"

Professor paused and then continued.

"We just have to hope."

Bubbles opened her mouth very slightly, as if she was going to argue, but then she closed it, sniffling and wiping a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

"Can you hope?"

She sucked in a shaky breath.

"Yes, Professor, I can hope. I'll hope to the end of the world! I'll hope until bunnies don't be cute anymore!"

Professor smiled weakly.

"That's my little Bubbles…"

She beamed through her tears, her eyes shining in the glow of the streetlights.

As silence settled over us, my mind began to spin again. Could **I** hope? I guess I could…I sure hoped I could get out of this mess. And as I slid into my pajamas and sunk into the warm, soft depths of my bed, I hoped even more, wishing Boomer would sing about Miss Susie's steamboat going to hell. Oh, God, help me…

**********************************

When the alarm clock buzzed at 6:00 sharp, breaking ruthlessly into my peaceful world of slumber, I was jolted back into reality; harsh reality. It was a Tuesday; a school day. School day= boring. Sigh…Well I knew there was no playing hooky, so I dragged my exhausted self out of bed, yawning and struggling to hold open my heavy eyelids. The only one in our bedroom besides me was Blossom; she was already dressed, and was standing in front of the mirror, humming halfheartedly and carefully brushing her silky, red hair, which she hadn't put into a ponytail yet. She heard me coming and turned around, still holding her pink, heart-shaped brush in one hand. Surprisingly, she didn't look at all pleased to be going to school; her face was creased with worry, and her expression looked just as drowsy as mine.

"Oh, hi, Butch." She said, breaking into a weak smile. "Did you sleep ok last night?"

"Not the least bit; unless you count two hours of sleep as 'ok'." I replied. True, true… Blossom sighed.

"Yeah…I didn't think so. I didn't sleep well either. It's been a really long few days for all of us…"

"Does our sibling getting attacked count as an excuse to ditch?"

Blossom gave me an offended look; I was expecting that.

"Of **course** not…We're not sick or injured ourselves, so we still have to go to school. Don't you value your education at **all**?"

"I just don't wanna go to school all sleep deprived like this. I mean, I just woke up from an unconsciousness spell **last night**! And **Boomer** doesn't have to go to school!"

"Boomer's in a coma." Blossom said firmly, her eyes now narrowed and fixed on mine. "I think being in a deep state of unconsciousness that could possibly leave you dead is a perfectly reasonable excuse to not be in school."

I moaned, rolling my eyes.

"Fine; I'm gonna go get ready."

Muttering under my breath, I stalked over to the dresser, pulled out one of my usual outfits, climbed into the closet, and changed. After I slipped my shirt over my head and tucked it into my pants, I pushed the closet door open and stomped out, scratching my tousled black hair. Blossom was still at the mirror, clipping her shiny, loose hair back with her heart clip, and then pinning her red hair bow onto the top of her head. I watched as she ran a hand through her hair and sighed, then turning around and staring at the huge rat nest on top of my head.

"Do you want me to help untangle that thing?" she asked, trying to be helpful. I scowled; not everyone could have such perfect hair as Blossom. But knowing what horror was in store for me if I tried to fix it alone, I sat down sulkily on the chair in front of the mirror and let Blossom brush the tangled chaos that was my hair. She ran her brush through it like a pro, and in no time, my black hair was straight and shining, drooping in my face in big, floppy spikes. I stared at my reflection in the mirror with my wide emerald eyes as she grabbed a bottle of green hair gel and squeezed some of it into her hand, and then smoothed it into my hair, sculpting it into my usual spiked style. When she was done, she gripped my elbow and pulled me up, shoving me towards the bedroom door. I decided to hold my complaints, to keep my chances of getting another hair styling job like this average, and I flew obediently down to the breakfast table, groaning when I saw what was being served; oatmeal. Disgusting, flavorless sludge that nobody should ever have to eat. But after I saw how gloomy everyone else was, Bubbles, Professor, Brick, and Buttercup, I held my tongue and plopped into my seat, picking up my spoon and jabbing sourly at the junk in my bowl.

The rest of the morning passed painfully silent, as if a huge gray cloud hung over the whole house. I'd never seen a gloomier school morning. Not even Bubbles looked at all pleased to go to school; in fact she was nearly in tears. Brick's expression was oddly blank, and he kept zoning out, bumping into things and muttering random comments under his breath; during breakfast he had stared at the ceiling while trying to cut his toast with a spoon. Blossom and I were the most sane; tired and glum, but at least not acting really out of the ordinary. Buttercup was the most sullen of all, her face set in a vicious scowl, her back kept constantly turned towards me, pretending like I didn't exist. I felt myself being mentally punched in the gut every time I saw this, so I strived to keep my wandering eyes from landing on her, no matter how impossible that task was. Screw screw **screw**… My face sunk into the meanest scowl I could make, fury burning inside of me; if Buttercup wanted to be an ass, let her.

*****************************

I drifted through the clouds, soaring across the sparkling blue sky like a jet plane, my arms outstretched and the crisp spring wind flowing around me like liquid. As it ruffled my clothes and tousled my spiked hair, I glanced down at the tiny town far below, my eyes shining and my mouth stretched into the widest smile ever seen. I felt so on top of the world, so light, so free… My mouth opened and a whoop of exhilaration spilled out and curled through the balmy, streaming wind as the sun shone down glimmering golden rays that bathed the whole marvelous panorama in warm buttery light. Then suddenly the whole place just went dark, as if the whole world was lit by a light switch that some idiot just turned off. I froze in my tracks, my eyes widening in horror as a faint halo of blood red light rose over the far horizon like a menacing cloud, glowing like a beacon through the heavy blackness that clogged my throat and squeezed my chest. I stared in bewilderment as something else rose up in the red cloud of light; something huge. It towered over the land like a giant, 1000 feet tall, and I suddenly felt like a speck, wanting to get the heck out of there as fast as possible but unable to move an inch. My sanity suddenly left me the instant I realized who the giant was; it was Ms. Keane, glaring down at me with piercing eyes, her hands on her hips and her face eerily lit by the crimson light. I couldn't breathe or make a sound; it was like it was all stuck in a traffic jam in my throat.

"BUTCH!" Ms. Keane suddenly cried, staring down at me, her tone filled with that motherly strict scolding of a bad kid. Something finally escaped from my mouth, and it was a scream.

"AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"

My head jolted upright and my tightly shut eyes flew open, my skin hot and clammy and shiny with sweat. My emerald eyes were wide and hysterical, and they saw Ms. Keane looking disapprovingly down at me; I was back in the classroom again. A groan escaped my mouth.

"Butch." Ms. Keane repeated sternly. "I would appreciate it if you'd kindly join our class and stop falling asleep like that. Are you really **that** tired?"

"Yes…" I replied smartly, wiping drool out of the corner of my mouth and smoothing my spiky hair away from my eyes; it was all messy from sleeping with my head on the hard desk. "I got two hours of sleep last night; of **course** I'm tired."

"Well, stay awake or I'll have to send you out."

I'd much rather be soaring above the clouds right now anyway.

"Go ahead; send me out. I don't care."

Blossom whirled and gave me a fierce glare that I guessed was again associated with my lack of enthusiasm about my education. I sighed deeply, yawning and rubbing my eyes.

"Ok; I'll stay."

"Good. And kindly pay attention while you are here."

Ms. Keane turned away from me and continued to talk about whatever she'd been talking about before she broke into my peaceful world of slumber; I groaned and laid my head down on my desk again, not caring at all about whatever lesson I was missing. I was exhausted and stressed, and that was all that mattered to me. I glanced at the others, and I knew that they were in the same boat. Brick was staring absently into space, drawing random scribbles on his paper at the same time. Bubbles' head was bowed down, and her eyes were shiny and brimmed with tears. Buttercup was playing with a paper clip, bending it into abstract shapes, her expression dismal. Not even Blossom seemed alert; her eyes were fixed on Ms. Keane, but they had a glazed, faraway look in them, as if she wasn't listening at all, her mind engrossed in something else. I barely contained a snicker; Blossom was angry at me for sleeping in class, and here she was, not paying attention herself? All of her efforts to be perfect made me want to break out in hysterical laughter sometimes. I mean, nobody does EVERYTHING perfectly right; not even Blossom. I watched her with my sleepy eyes, wondering why SHE didn't seem to admit that.

My wandering gaze happened to land on Buttercup again, and my heart plummeted down into my gut as usual when I saw that she was determinedly ignoring me, her eyes fixed on the paper clip she was twisting into an arrow shape. A sigh escaped my mouth and I looked away, wishing I knew what the hell was making my life so miserable. What had I ever done to deserve this anyway? Ok, so maybe I wasn't the most perfect little angel boy in the world, but was I really bad enough to deserve to be chucked into this hell hole? I remembered Boomer, lying lifeless in a pink hospital gown in a coma, and a shiver zipped up and down my spine. My eyes grew hot and tingly, filling with burning tears, but I painfully swallowed and held them in, my hands clenching into tight fists.

Just then, a burning pain exploded in my head like a hand grenade going off, and my eyes snapped shut faster than mousetraps as my hands flew instinctively up to my forehead. Not here…not AGAIN… I gritted my teeth so hard that my jaws started to hurt, and the pain in my head seared like a fire; this time I would fight as hard as I could. The fire in my head expanded suddenly, and the crushing pressure closed in, squeezing me like a lemon in a juice extractor. A small grunt escaped my mouth, but I clamped my jaws even tighter shut and clutched my head harder, my face set in a tight grimace. I pressed my forehead harder onto the desk, trying to let the cool faux wood surface ease the burning pain, but it didn't work; the pain seared and my whole body jumped, banging down loudly onto the desk and a cry bursting free of the traffic jam in my throat. In a panic, I struggled to breathe deeply, mentally pushing as hard as I could against the thing crushing my head, forcing itself in like it had a right to the place. It could at least pay rent, the sarcastic voice in the cheap apartment in the back of my head spat. That sarcastic voice had to pay a lot to be there, so it was probably just jealous; I wouldn't mind the crushing thing paying rent, though. I decided to charge it some rent; I squeezed my eyes shut as sticky beads of sweat rolled down my face, pushing as hard as I could, struggling to ram the squishy feeling right out the front door. I grunted and shoved, straining to win this game of mental tug-of-war, and for once, I had the upper hand; I could almost feel the pressure on my head getting lighter. I pushed once more, and then…bliss. My head slumped down on the desk, a relieved sigh slipping out of my mouth. The pressure was gone, and I felt all floaty and tingly inside. I lay there for a second, basking in my moment of triumph, and then I slowly opened my heavy eyelids, a big grin plastered on my hot, sticky face. My expression dropped in an instant; everybody in the classroom was staring right at me, wide eyed, as if they were ice cream sandwiches frozen in the snow drifts of Antarctica. I just realized that I'd played that whole game of mental tug-of-war in plain sight, right in the middle of class, and my heart dropped like a stone, my sweltering body jerking upright into a sitting position. My breathing coming fast and hard, burning with humiliation, I looked at Ms. Keane, who was staring at me like a zombie, just like everyone else. Try to look innocent, my brain told me; fire ants were attacking me, Buttercup was pinching me from behind, someone had put tacks on my chair, an invisible Martian was zapping me with a laser gun… The Lie Factory needed some repairs done; I doubted Ms. Keane would fall for any of those… And then she finally unfroze, her astonished expression melting into a stern one.

"**Butch**!" she cried, melting me with her ferocious gaze. "What do you have to say for yourself, young man?!"

I just stared.

"What do you think you were doing; acting so uncivilized in class?!"

"Uh…um…" I stammered while my brain whirred away. "Something crawled down my shirt. Something furry."

Ouch, that hurt.

Ms. Keane looked at me with an incredulous expression, her eyebrows raised suspiciously.

"Really? Hmmmm…How interesting. I guess I should have my classroom fumigated."

I felt the corners of my mouth twist up into a nervous smile as I mentally called a repairman to inspect the Lie Factory.

"Hey, I'm sorry." I said quietly, thinking maybe a nice apology would keep her off of my case. "I won't do it again."

"Go sit in the time-out corner." Ms. Keane said flatly, looking hard at me.

"But…"

"Right now, young man!"

I slowly got up, stalked over to the far back corner of the classroom, and sat in the rickety chair facing the wall, muttering "I'm sorry" the whole way.

"As I was saying, children…" Ms. Keane continued, her tone very warm, as I settled into the time-out chair, glaring at the wall. I thought about frying it with my laser beams, but that wouldn't at all help my current situation. Instead I wrapped my arms around my knees and settled my chin on top of them, feeling triumphant that I'd stopped that crushing thing from breaking into my brain. What would have happened if I would've had a spasm in **class**?! All that would have earned me was more publicity, in a bad way, and a one way ticket to the psychiatric office. Compared to more doctors, especially doctors who thought I was critically insane, the time-out corner was a breeze. Not that it was a Nazi death camp anyway. Now, the **psychiatric office **was a whole different story.

Sighing deeply, I turned my head around in my seat and glanced back at the others, curious to see what they were up to. They all seemed to be huddled together at our table, and Blossom was whispering to the others, her head down and her face somber. I strained my superhearing, deciding that this was another conversation I didn't want to miss.

"…and I think there's something really wrong with him." Blossom finished, just as my superhearing kicked in. I instantly knew that it was me they were talking about. My eyes darted over to Buttercup; her eyes were wide and empty, and she looked uncomfortable.

"I have to tell you guys something…" she said quietly, avoiding eye contact with everyone else. Blossom, Bubbles, and Brick looked at her, surprised. I glanced at Brick and was surprised to see how alone he looked, the only Rowdyruff Boy sitting at the table, his eyes all shiny with what looked like tears.

"I…" Buttercup stuttered, and then she fell silent, looking down at the ground.

"What?" Blossom asked, staring intently at her sister.

"You…you know that one day? That day when we fought that car thief with the SUV and those bank robbers that tied up Butch and stuff?"

Blossom nodded, and Bubbles and Brick kept their gazes locked on the black haired Powerpuff.

"Well…when me and Butch went into our room alone; you know, after I rescued him from Bubbles? Well he…he…"

"He **what**?" Brick demanded, leaning forward, his eyes hysterical.

I completely tuned out, already knowing what she was going to say. She was telling them about that incident with me and her in our bedroom, where she'd thought I'd attacked her. There were audible gasps from the whole table, and Bubbles looked as if she would slump to the floor in a dead faint, her face as white as a marshmallow. They sat in shocked silence for a moment, and then they all started jabbering away at once, frantically throwing their questions at Buttercup in a whirlwind. My head started to spin like a washing machine, so I buried my face in my knees and rocked gently, wishing I had a nice, cool desk to collapse on. How could I be the one attacking people?! That just wasn't possible!! Holy shit…What if they were right? I mean, who else could be trying to kill my siblings? But I wasn't; I was sure of that…

The rest of school day dragged on for weeks, with everybody avoiding me, like I was a ghost or something. Whenever I tried to talk to somebody, like when I asked Mary to pass me the crayons in art class so I could get a new red one to finish up my battle scene, they just acted like I wasn't even there. Even Blossom, Bubbles, and Brick seemed unusually shy towards me, and they kept pretty quiet when I tried to strike up conversations with them during a math lesson. Mike Believe scampered away from the water fountain when I floated over for a slurp, which was kinda nice, actually, but the way he looked at me when he ran wasn't.

During recess, everyone shied away from me, and I felt the steam building up. The last thing I wanted to do was sit around alone when I supposed to be having fun. Trying to ignore all the jerks that were looking at me funny, I dashed across the asphalt towards Harry Pitt, the guy that I liked to play football with all the time. He was standing in the grass laughing with a couple of his other buds, who looked up and stared at me with doe eyes just before they split, running over to play with Mitch Mitchelson, who was goofing off by the swings on the other side of the playground. Harry looked at me nervously, but he stayed put, shifting the football that he had under his arm.

"Hey, dude…" I called out breathlessly, skidding to a stop beside him. "What's up?"

Harry shrugged, looking down at the grass now. Was he afraid he'd turn to stone if he looked me in the eyes or something?

"I'm not gonna explode or anything; I just want to hang out with somebody!" I said, elbowing Harry in the ribs, trying to be friendly. He looked up and gave me a weak smile.

"How's it going?" he asked quietly.

"Today sucks." I replied truthfully. "Everybody's giving me the silent treatment."

"Well, you…you kinda freaked them out."

"Did I freak **you** out?"

"Kind of." Harry answered, looking away again, clutching his football tightly against his chest. My mouth started to open, but I jammed it closed; this was obviously a tense subject, and I still wanted to have at least a **little** fun. So I leaned forward and slipped the football easily out of Harry's grasp, smiling at him and twirling it around in my hands.

"C'mon, let's play!"I shouted, bouncing up and down excitedly, my whole body twitching like usual. Harry stared at me, his eyes wide, taking a step back. This hit me like a blow to the stomach; he always jumped with joy at my invitations to play, because he wasn't exactly the most popular guy in school. Some people still thought he had cooties, I guess. Harry must've seen my face fall, if it was that obvious.

"Hey, dude; no hard feelings, ok?" he said quickly, gesturing comfortingly towards me. "I just don't want to play today. Mitch promised he'd try to hook me up with Julie Bean today."

A tiny smile crept onto my face; Harry had always wanted attention from girls, but the rumors about him having cooties prevented him from having **anyone** even stand three feet from him.

"Ok." I breathed, forcing a sympathetic grin onto my face. "You go."

"No hard feelings, right?" Harry asked, his tone full of relief. I shook my head. "Cool. See ya later, dude."

We slapped hands, rapped knuckles, and then Harry dashed off, running off of the grass field that we were on, heading towards the playground stuff on the asphalt, where Mitch Mitchelson was hanging out. As soon as he was gone, and I was left standing all alone in the grass, I almost felt the smile slip off of my face like spilled soda. Sucking in a shaking breath, my knees buckled and I collapsed onto the grass, my butt landing hard on the dirt. My mind ran in confused circles as I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms tightly around them, hot tears welling up in my eyes. Something had to have happened; something totally out of the ordinary. It must have been really weird to have scared Harry away from me; he had always played with me, never caring about how psychotic I was, even without this weird crushing thing in my head. Maybe I had multiple personality disorder or something. Was I really going insane? No; it couldn't be…. I felt the butterflies in my stomach explode, and a small, fat tear squeezed out of my eye, crawling down my cheek like a wet caterpillar. Then as quick as it escaped, the tear was gone, flicked away in an instant by a single swipe of my hand. Stupid, stupid, **stupid**… I curled up into a tighter ball, hiding my face in my pants, struggling as hard as I could to hold in all the rotten tears that were fighting to break free. Why, oh why was this happening to me?

***************************************************

"I said, how was your day, Butch?"

Professor's voice broke through my trance, and my head snapped up so I could stare up at him blankly. We were sitting in the little white car, and Professor was driving us home from school. I shook my head, amazed at how asleep I'd been after recess; maybe I really was a psycho.

"Ok…." I lied, my voice small and my mouth as dry as the Sahara desert. I noticed that everybody else was purposely looking away from me, but I caught Brick staring at me out of the corner of his eye, and his pupils soared away to stare out the window again when I met his gaze. A sigh escaped my mouth and I leaned back against the seat, looking down at the car's stale Cheerio covered carpet.

I could tell that Professor wasn't buying it, but he dropped the subject anyways. He turned his full attention back to the road, but his knuckles showed white as he clutched the steering wheel. My voice was once again caught in my throat, and I remained painfully silent until we pulled into our driveway, piled out of the car, and stumbled into the house. Buttercup staggered right for the TV, like usual, but her expression was blank and wide eyed. Once she clicked the TV on with the remote, she just stared at the screen, even though there was Barney playing on that channel, and she liked Barney just as much as she liked spiders. Blossom soared over to the table, pulled her books out of her backpack, and got out a pencil and paper so she could do her homework. But she just started doodling absently on her worksheets, looking like a zombie. Bubbles slumped into a corner and grabbed a hold of Octi, squeezing him tightly in her arms as she whimpered quietly. Brick grabbed an orange from the fruit basket and started to eat it without peeling it; his eyes suddenly popped and his pupils contracted. While Brick frantically spit all over the floor, I collapsed onto the carpet, almost feeling the weight of my despair sitting on my shoulders like a big fat elephant.

We sat like that for a long while; seemed like years to me. Professor looked disturbed, obviously noticing all the odd behavior around the house, and everyone else was frozen in their trances. I cuddled on the floor, watching the second hand on the clock tick in slow motion, trying to ignore the empty sound of the TV, blaring out the Barney theme song. I started to shake, terror suddenly sweeping over me and clenching my stomach with an iron fist. Why was I feeling so….scared? I curled into a ball on the carpet and shivered, feeling totally vulnerable and stupid, pressing my fist as hard against my mouth as I could. I squeezed my eyelids shut until they hurt, and then something grabbed me, clutching my torso tightly. My eye suddenly popped open, and then my mouth dropped open; it was the Professor, holding me tenderly and looking into my eyes with a worried expression.

"Are you all right, son?" he asked, sounding very concerned. I stared at him, my whole body frozen, as images of Boomer, bloody and mangled on the kitchen floor with only the whites of his eyes showing, flooded whatever was left of my brain. Even though I tried to stop it, my body shook violently, like a 9.0 earthquake. My eyes burned with hot tears, some of them sliding free and crawling down my cheek, betraying me.

"I'M **NOT** OK!!" I screeched, tears pouring down my face like Niagara Falls, no matter how hard I tried to stop them. A wave of embarrassment washing over me, I put my head down and watched the tears slip off of my face and drip onto the carpet, leaving little dark spots.

"Nobody cares…nobody cares…" These words just poured out of my mouth like syrup, and I didn't realize how stupid they sounded until a second after I'd said them.

"That's not true…" Professor said calmly, pulling me into his lap, his arms still circling me reassuringly. Completely broken down, I buried my face into his shirt and felt the tears crawl down my cheeks as I clung onto the fabric as tight as I could.

"No they **don't…**" I said, my voice muffled by Professor's shirt. "They all ran away from me, and said I was crazy, and they wouldn't play with me and they talked about me behind my back!"

"They're all very worried. They just don't know how to tell you what they think without hurting your feelings." Professor replied, holding me comfortingly, stroking my hair with his hands. We stayed like that for a long time, me curled up in Professor's lap, crying into his shirt, and his arms wrapped around me.

Suddenly a loud ringing sound burst through the comforting silence, and we both jumped in surprise; it was the phone. Why must technology always ruin our most tender moments? Without a word, Professor stood up and walked over to the living room to answer it, still holding me against his shoulder with one arm, like you would hold a baby. As he picked up the phone, I closed my eyes and snuggled against his warm shoulder as a few more tears squeezed free and dripped down my cheeks, trying to ignore the voice in my head that was calling me a pathetic loser.

"Hello. This is the Utonium residence; how may we help you?"

The voice on the other end sounded garbled and overexcited, almost like the Mayor, but I didn't listen to what they were saying, because I didn't care.

"**You don't say?!**" Professor suddenly exclaimed, his eyes popping. "That's **wonderful** news! The kids will be overjoyed!"

I perked up in Professor's arms; what would we be overjoyed about?

"Yes; we'll be there as soon as we can. Tell him we're coming."

He hung up the phone with a click and whirled around excitedly, still holding me firmly.

"Boys! Girls!" he shouted. "Come here; I have fantastic news!"

In a second and a flash of light, Brick, Bubbles, Blossom, and Buttercup were there, floating in front of Professor with anxious expressions.

"What…?" Blossom began quietly, but Professor cut her off.

"**Boomer has woken up from his coma!**"

The whole room froze for a second, absorbing the information, when it exploded, everybody breaking into cheers. Blossom gasped, her eyes sparkling and her hands flying up to her face. Brick's reaction was almost identical. Bubbles burst into delighted tears while Buttercup whooped and punched the air with exhilaration.

"Let's go see him; let's go!!" Bubbles squealed, tugging impatiently at Professor's shirt.

"Of course we're going…"

Before Professor could finish his sentence, he was grabbed by all of us, including me of course, and carried off into the sky, zooming for downtown, all of us laughing in relief and ecstasy the whole way. In a few minutes, we arrived at the Townsville City Hospital, finally setting the Professor down and following him eagerly through the front doors, babbling excitedly. My heart was exploding in my chest, and happiness was flooding through me; I almost forgot the whole issue with Dr. Reynolds and me 'attacking' Boomer. I just wanted to see him alive, more than anything, even more than a snack from the Bravo Burgers restaurant that I was completely obsessed with.

We approached the check-in desk at the emergency care center, where Professor requested to see Boomer. The pudgy nurse lady with curly black layered hair at the check-in desk smiled and approved, sending for a doctor to escort us. When I saw who it was, I felt my face fall; it was Dr. Reynolds, boring his steel gray eyes into me like drill bits, the second he saw me. I stared back, making my eyes as hard and menacing as possible, not wanting to fight with this asshole any more.

"Come; follow me." Dr. Reynolds ordered sharply, turning on his heel and leading us down the corridor to Boomer's room, his mouth set in a serious line. He turned the stainless steel knob and pushed open the glossy white door with a creak; we all zipped into the room as fast as possible, stopping short in front of Boomer's bed. And there he was, sitting up and leaning weakly against his big white pillow, free of all but one cord, stuck in by a needle in his wrist. His blond hair was tangled, his skin was pale and sweaty, and his ocean blue eyes looked huge in his face as he stared at us, like a deer in the headlights. Bubbles let out a squeal of pure joy and zoomed over to his side faster than if she'd been magnetically attracted, wrapping him in a warm hug, tears of joy pouring down her face. He squeezed her back, his mouth twisting into a weak, but genuine smile as the rest of us flew over to him, our hearts overflowing with relief. He smiled at each one of us, some color rushing back into his pale, sticky face, and his eyes shining like polished sapphires. Then his eyes fell on me and suddenly the smile slid off in an instant, and a look of complete terror replaced it. My heart sunk immediately, and my face fell, a heavy feeling of dread filling my stomach; something wasn't right.

"Boomi…What's wrong?" Bubbles asked, obviously noticing Boomer's body tensing up. Boomer's arm lifted up, shaking, to point straight at me, his eyes wide with terror, piercing me like spears.

"He….he…" Boomer whispered in horror, his voice weak and scratchy. "He cutted me up."

"**WHAT!!**" everyone screamed, after a tense silence. My mouth dropped open; this couldn't be happening.

"He cutted me up." Boomer repeated, still pointing at me accusingly and staring at me without blinking once. "He attacked me when I was getting' a drink; and he wrestled me, and he cutted my tummy with a plate, and I cried…"

His eyes started to fill with tears, and his mouth trembled. I shook my head back and forth, not believing it, his expression crumbling me up inside. Everyone in the room turned slowly to stare at me, their stares hitting me like bullets, as Boomer burst into tears, covering his face with his hands. No…no...no…**NO**…

I couldn't stand it any longer.

I felt my feet leave the ground and I was in the air, crashing through the wall of the hospital room in a streak of emerald green, catching a glimpse of ' smug face as I fled. I flew up into the sky and blasted over the metropolis, fleeing for somewhere I didn't know, fighting back hot tears, my throat all clogged up, and my mind racing in dizzy circles. I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't stay here any longer. Not one more second.

****************************

**Author's note:** Yay; I finally updated! You'd better like it, because I worked hard and it's the longest chapter I've ever written. (Just kidding) _-CrystalBlossomX_


	6. Mental Help

The Milky Way is a tiny speck in the infinite universe, one of trillions and billions of other galaxies, floating around like a little grain of sand in the world ocean. In that Milky Way galaxy, there is a teeny tiny little solar system centered around a small star, drifting on one of the glittering spiral arms like a pinprick. Feel insignificant yet? It gets worse. There are 9 planets in that solar system, and the Earth is only one of them; one of the smaller ones. On Earth, there are 7 continents, and North America is where America is, one of God knows how many countries; not like **I** know how many there are. And Townsville is one of the millions, probably more, of the cities in America, shining like a jewel in the black night. So as the full moon with a ghostly halo ringing it shone down milky beams on the sparkling night metropolis, nobody in the whole freakin' universe cared about me, one tiny boy on the streets of Townsville, one tiny city, in one tiny country, on one tiny continent, on one tiny planet, in one tiny solar system, in one tiny galaxy, sailing through never ending nothingness. That's what it felt like to me.

I sat on a trash can in a dirty, dark, narrow alley somewhere in downtown, curled up in a little ball, staring up into the deep ink colored sky, the moon reflected in my wide eyes. A cool wind was blowing around, and my butt was nearly frozen stiff from being planted on that stupid, freezing, metal trash can for hours, not moving an inch. Even though my body was paralyzed, my mind was running marathons, and aching from it. All that I could think of was that moment, when Boomer looked me straight in the eye and blamed me for attacking him, and that scene kept on replaying over and over like a horrible scene from a bad movie that you can't get out of your head, no matter how hard you try. The camera would zoom in on Boomer's zombie-like expression as he pointed at me and told the whole room who had cut him up, zooming even closer when his eyes filled with tears and he began to bawl. Then it zoomed back and caught the horrified looks on everyone else's faces as they shouted "WHAT??!!", and whipped around to stare at me, their eyes penetrating me like x-rays. It focused on me as I fled, but it suddenly zoomed in on that horrible smug look on Dr. Reynolds' stupid mug; narrowed, piercing tunnel eyes, huge grin, and his arms folded across his chest, trying to hide a very obvious urge to break out in hysterical laughter. That image lingered in my head like a ghost, haunting me forever and ever, following me down to my grave, laughing and pointing in my face without shame. I felt my eyes get wet and heavy again, and this time I didn't even try to hold them in, instead I flipped off that voice in my head that was calling me a blubbering crybaby and sobbed, the tears silently pouring down my cheeks. Nobody cared, so I couldn't care less what those damn people thought of me. Nobody…nobody…NOBODY was listening, NOBODY was caring, and nobody was even LOOKING. I was completely and totally alone, all by my psychotic self, with nobody else. Nobody… I pulled my knees up to my face and cried even more, watching the tears slip off of my face and drip onto my pants, soaking through to my skin. My chest felt empty and full at the same time, heavy with dread and hopelessness. I'd never even felt like this before; all my life, I'd always had **somebody**. Sometimes it was my bros, sometimes my buds, sometimes a crazy 'family member', but there had always been somebody. Somebody. Somebody please find me here. Somebody say they know what the hell is wrong with me, and tell me they know how to fix it. Somebody please see me, listen to me, and help me. HELP ME…

I don't know how long I sat like that, frozen to death by the stupid trashcan and the crummy wind, crying my stupid heart out, my face buried in my legs, and my arms going to sleep from staying in the same position too long. All I know is that I woke up suddenly, from something prodding me between the shoulder blades. When my eyes adjusted, I saw with dismay that it was still dead dark, and I was ready to pulverize whoever the heck thought they could ruin my relief and live to tell the tale. I sat up and whirled around in a flash, to face a gaunt, pale, unshaven face with sunken, bloodshot eyes, grinning at me widely and showing off disgusting butter popcorn colored teeth. I jumped violently with a ragged gasp, nearly falling off of the trash can, my heart soaring into my throat and my eyeballs nearly popping out of my head.

"Yo." The guy said, leaning close to my face so I could smell his putrid breath; naturally, I backed off.

"What the **HECK**?!" I exclaimed, scrambling to my feet, not trying to be an ass, but what would **you** have done?

"Hey, sorry if I scared you, little kid." The man said, gesturing innocently with his hands.

"I'm not a little kid." I retorted, even though I thought being six years old put you into the category of 'little kid'.

"Look like one to me. You an orphan or somethin'?"

Was I an orphan? I had two dads: one was Mojo Jojo and the other was Him, who was destroyed anyway.

"I don't know…" I muttered, pulling my legs tightly against my chest and resting my chin on my knees.

"How can you not know somethin' like that?"

"I just don't know, OK!" I glared viciously at the bum. "What are you, a police interrogator?!"

The guy shrugged.

"Just gettin' to know my fellow bums."

What a disgusting freak. I snorted, looking away from him.

"Leave me alone." I growled, sick of this guy already. But he didn't go away; he stayed standing next to my trash can as silence hung over us like a heavy blanket.

"You look familiar to me, kid…"

"Oh I do, do I, Holmes?"

"Aren't you one of those superhero kids?"

I whipped around, staring at him, the tiny stars reflected in my huge eyes. He shrugged again.

"You're pretty easy to recognize, ya know."

I sighed, burying my face in my hands. I really didn't feel like spilling my heart's secrets out to this guy; I briefly considered picking him up and throwing him on top of the nearest skyscraper.

"So," he continued. "What are YOU doin' out here?"

I glowered at him, trying to copy Dr. Reynolds' penetrating glare.

"Why do you need to know?" I snapped, narrowing my eyes to slits. He shrugged again. This was really annoying me now. I decided not to talk to him anymore, turning my back on him and settling my freezing butt back down on the icy trash can lid, hugging my knees to my chest to try to conserve the miniscule bit of warmth my tiny body made. I shivered as the chilly wind swept through my clothes, really wishing I was bigger.

Suddenly a rush of flaming heat exploded in my head and it was on fire again, like it was being skewered by thousands of white hot knives. My whole body lurched and a shuddering gasp escaped my mouth, my hands flying up to my head and my eyes squeezing shut. Stupid, stupid crap…Once I found out what was doing this to me, I would make sure to skewer IT up into microscopic pieces. But now I had to win this fight.

Grunting and trying to block out the scorching, throbbing agony, I gathered up all the strength in my mind and shoved, struggling once again to force that crushing thing out my head. But it countered with a ram so powerful that I was mentally kicked to the ground and stamped over like a piece of garbage in a busy high school corridor. Such a pain exploded in my head that a piercing screech escaped my mouth and I tumbled off of the trashcan, barely feeling the pain of hitting the asphalt. The pain in my head was so much worse; tearing, burning, incinerating, searing…I wanted to die…My body twitched and jerked uncontrollably. Please just let it end…Screams, screeches, howls of agony…**please**…

_The black haired boy sat up, his emerald eyes alight with a wicked red gleam, his face twisted into a maniacal grin. His eyes searched his surroundings, a dank, dirty, narrow alley, and he spotted someone; a scrawny, grimy hobo with a scraggly beard and tattered clothes, staring at him with huge eyes, obviously paralyzed with terror. The boy's already huge grin widened; this frail dimwit would soon be gone, crushed…Well, the gene pool would get a little well needed chlorination. The boy pounced, throwing himself at the hobo, who let out a strangled cry and struggled to throw him off. The black haired boy laughed crazily, socking the hobo hard in the gut with a sickening crunch; what a pathetic excuse for an attack. Well, he would show this hobo how to attack; the hard way. The boy snickered and slapped the hobo across his scrawny face; he let out a yelp and dropped weakly to his knees, dark red blood oozing from the left corner of his mouth. One more punch to the stomach knocked the hobo onto his back, and he screamed as his ribs snapped like twigs under the brute force of the black haired boy, who let out a shriek of laughter and continued to beat him mercilessly. A good hard punch there, a kick there, a slap there…The black haired boy laughed and laughed and laughed, uncontrollably and crazily, the red gleam flashing menacingly in his wild eyes. He continued his ruthless beating until he couldn't find a part of the hobo that wasn't already battered and bloodied so he could punch it. The scrawny man lay motionless on the ground like a tattered rag doll, moaning weakly, his body oozing blood all over and his limbs sticking out at odd angles. The emerald eyed boy stood up and surveyed his work with a wide grin, his hands on his hips. Then he reached out and seized the hobo's arm with a snicker; time to tear the loser limb from limb…_

My head jerked backwards and it bumped on something hard, throbbing pain exploding on the back of it. My hand flew up to my head out of instinct; my heart dropped down to my gut when I felt something slip out of my hand as it moved. I dared myself to look, and I froze with horror when I saw; it was a pale hand. The hand of the scrawny, tattered, hobo guy who'd been interrogating me. Now he was sprawled on the asphalt, looking broken and beaten, all covered in dark rivers of…blood. My breath left me suddenly; the image of Boomer, bloody and mangled on the kitchen floor, sprang into my mind, like it was teasing me. I stared at the hobo, who was looking more dead than alive, and terror clogged my throat like a hard knot. I looked down at myself in horror, and I felt my heart leap when I saw that my skin and clothes were covered in dark red bloodstains. I had to face the truth that was spitting in my face; I was the one hurting all these people. My brain wasn't working anymore; my legs gave way under me and I collapsed onto my knees, staring at the beaten hobo, my gaze frozen in shocked disbelief. But it had to be me. It was me. I was a killer, a maniac, a …psycho; a real psycho. My throat seized up, and icy chill spread in my chest, and my stomach dropped so far down that it probably fell through the earth and came out in China on the other side. My head dropped down, and I stared at the blood drenched asphalt, my hands sweating and my jaw clenched so tight that it hurt. I sat there, frozen like an ice sculpture, until I suddenly burst out in choked tears, like a dam breaking all of a sudden. The hot tears poured down my cheeks silently, and I watched them drip to the ground as my body shook uncontrollably. I didn't even care how stupid I looked; screw all those judgmental people. I just bawled like a little baby until no more tears came out, like the reservoir had run dry. Then I slumped over until my forehead touched the cold, bloody asphalt, drowning like a rat in the pool of despair that swamped my stomach, icy and clenching. My head spun hopelessly; who was I? What was I? What was making me kill people? I knew I wasn't **trying** to… Where would I go? I couldn't go back home; my heart leapt uncomfortably when I thought of the others…me hurting them like I had hurt Boomer. Buttercup…Another sob managed to burst out of me, a few last tears squeezing out of my eyes and crawling down my cheeks. I pictured Buttercup, laying spread eagled on the ground, all torn and bloody like Boomer, not breathing, and only the whites of her eyes showing; I retched in horrified disgust. No… I didn't know what the hell to do with my insane self, but I knew enough to not go back home and put everybody **else** in danger. My feet left the ground and off I flew, soaring over the twinkling night city, free like an eagle and imprisoned in my own body at the same time, my throat sealed off by a hard, cold knot.

***************************************

And so I passed the days; stupidly and helplessly, but what else could I do? I couldn't go home; not to everybody else and put their lives in jeopardy because of my uncontrollable insanity. I didn't have a home anymore; I didn't belong anywhere in the whole damn universe. This thought haunted me, and it stayed frozen brilliantly in my mind as I wandered aimlessly around town. Nobody cared about me. Nobody could help me. Nobody…

I usually camped out in the alleys like a hobo, which I guess I **was **now, sleeping in cardboard boxes when I was lucky; I usually had to park my butt and the hard, freezing concrete for the night, always waking up all stiff and sore. I had to steal my food, which was a part of my old lifestyle that I wasn't proud of going back to, but since I was a killer anyways, what difference did a few missing cookies make? I tried not to steal directly from the stores, just trying to behave myself a bit; I liked to root through dumpsters out in the backs of grocery stores and restaurants, scavenging for something that was mildly sanitary. You would never believe how much perfectly good food that grocery stores throw out, only because it was a day after their expiration dates. I'm talking about practically untouched cupcakes, cookies, crackers, soup cans, and tons of other good stuff. That one night that I found a hoard of perfect hamburgers in the dumpster outside Bravo Burgers was heaven for a hobo like me. I definitely was in character now, with tattered and filthy clothes, tangled hair, and a stench that would probably make Blossom drop to the floor in a dead faint if she came within 30 yards of me. But I didn't really care. I'd survived through all of that when me and my brothers were evil, and we would run around on the streets and blow up stuff, trying to live the best we could, fighting the Powerpuff Girls every chance we got. It wasn't the hobo lifestyle that tortured me, it was this insanity.

I never knew when it might strike, that horrible burning, searing pain that sliced through my head like a red hot knife, making me into a bloodthirsty, ruthless killer. It could be while I was sleeping in my soggy cardboard box, or when I was stealing Oreos from Malph's grocery store, or when I was just skulking around in the alley like a lost soul, staring up at the hot spring sun that slanted through the towering buildings that clustered around the dank, narrow roads. But when I went insane, I went insane. I'd come back to myself later, not knowing what had happened, and finding myself standing in front of some person, beaten to a bloody pulp and lying lifelessly on the asphalt. I didn't even try to fight it anymore; I just let the pain overcome me, welcoming the fact that I'd escape my horrid life for a while, because I wouldn't remember what happened afterwards. At least as a ferocious murderer, I moved around like my life had a purpose (I **guessed**), because it sure didn't feel that way when I was in my normal state.

If there was anything I knew, it was that I couldn't live like this, confused, suffering, helpless, alone… I just couldn't…

*********************************

_The black haired boy scampered down the white tiled aisle, an evil gleam in his glowing, scarlet tinted emerald eyes. People were standing all around him, frozen like popsicles, staring at him with terrified gazes. But he didn't care, and he twisted around them, shoving them out of his way when he needed to. There was only one person he wanted right now. As he rounded the corner and entered the chill of the frozen food aisle, he saw his prey: a pimply teenage boy with greasy dark hair and a grocer's shirt, running away along the slippery floor, petrified. The black haired boy cackled insanely and threw himself forward, charging at the teenage boy; how pathetic. The black haired boy landed right on top of the teenager with a thump, and the teen crumpled to the floor with a cry, his body skidding across the tile and out of an employees' entrance, coming to a stop in the dirty alley beside the supermarket, which was littered with garbage and old cardboard boxes. Score; it was a perfect landing. _

_Without even thinking, the black haired boy started to beat the teen, punching him in the jaw, the stomach, the arm…With every cry of pain from the teen, the more ecstatic the boy became. He strengthened his blows until the teenager stopped fighting, limp from the powerful attacks. More blood, more blood…More. The black haired boy picked up his victim and slammed him into a dumpster with devastating force, and the teen was knocked unconscious as he cut his leg on a rough edge, the dark red blood dripping down his thigh. The black haired boy shrieked with laughter and continued his work; punch, kick, slap, and keep it up until he was tired. More blood…__**more**__…._

I slipped on a puddle and pitched face first in a spectacular fall that you only see in movies, landing on something big, soft, and wet. I felt something wet and salty in my mouth, and my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when I realized what it was: blood. I spat frantically, trying to get that shit out of my mouth and trying to hold back the acidic vomit that was lingering in the back of my throat as my insides lurched uncomfortably. Then when I couldn't taste the salt in my mouth anymore, I clambered off of the soft, damp thing I had fallen on, and I found I couldn't hold in the vomit when I saw what exactly I had fallen on top of; it was the blood soaked, battered body of a teenage boy. After I had barfed out my whole dinner of moldy pizza and dirty gutter water, I tried to squeeze out some of the blood that was soaked into my clothes with my hands, disgusted that it was somebody else's blood covering me from head to toe. A few drips squeezed out, but that was all I could manage, so I gave up with a groan, letting go of my bloodstained shirt and turning around to scurry away down the alley so I could find my bed (which was currently a recycling bin) and get some rest, which I desperately needed. But when I'd swung around I froze instantly, like a statue, my expression like the one on a little kid's face who'd just been caught stealing cookies, my eyes huge and my face blank; it was Mojo Jojo. Mojo Jojo, my first creator, the insane chimp dude with a crazy hat and who didn't know how to shut his trap. And he was there, standing in the alley a few yards in front of me, staring at me with a horrified expression. We stared silently at each other for a few seconds, frozen where we stood, and then I spoke, shifting into a more comfortable position as I did, my arms falling to my sides.

"Wha-what the heck…**What're you doing here**?!" I exclaimed hysterically, pointing accusingly at him. Had that creep been following me?! A shiver ran down my spine; he **better** not have. Mojo just stared, his eyes blank, and then he started jabbering away like the motor mouth he was, crossing his arms angrily in a quick movement as he did.

"The question is not what I am doing here, but the question is what **you** are doing here!" he retaliated, the words pouring out of his mouth in a long, fast stream. "My actions are not the actions to be questioned; it is your actions which will be questioned. And furthermore…"

"Hey, shut it, dorko!" I yelled, cutting him off before he could get into one of those never ending rants of his. "**Were you following me**?!"

Mojo seemed taken aback by my accusation.

"Of course I was not following you, you incessant pest! I was merely walking back from the supermarket, which is a large market where many good can be bought and sold, after buying eggs for Mojo's ultra nutritious breakfast, the kind upgraded with omega-3, which is very good for a person's health and well being…"

"Oh, shut it!!" I yelled, cutting him off again.

My god; how did he learn to blabber like this?!

"So you were coming back from the store and you happened to run into me. And please speak like a normal person." I just noticed a plastic shopping bag under his left arm; he was probably not lying then. Good, because the thought of a crazy chimp following me everywhere was pretty disturbing.

"That is correct, uncivilized little child. And no, I will not speak in your "normal person" way of communicating, which is much too brief and primitive. If I were to speak in such a fashion, which is brief and primitive, I would not be able to express all the feelings that I wish to express, therefore not achieving my highest potential of expression."

I groaned, throwing my head back, and then I turned to leave, not wanting to waste any more time talking with this loon.

"Wait! Stop! Cease! Desist!" Mojo yelled as I began to scurry away, throwing out a hand in my direction. "You must tell me the turn of events which in turn led to your being in the state of filth and gore you are currently in!"

I stopped and turned back around, not understanding a word he just said.

"**What**?"

"What happened to you?!" Mojo yelled, his hands thrown up in frustration; frustration probably coming from me not understanding him and his having to ask a simple question like a normal person. But as much as I appreciated his efforts, I didn't feel like spilling my guts out to him, so I gave him a piercing glare and turned to fly away.

"WAIT!!" Mojo screeched, running up to me, an almost crazed look in his eyes. "I must know the turn of events which in turn led to your being in the state of filth and gore you are currently in!"

I'd never seen him this desperate, and I was repulsed by it; more by the fact that he'd seized the front of my bloody, grimy shirt and pulled my face close to his.

"I insist that you tell me the facts, for fantasy is useless in this kind of situation; one where facts are necessary. If you agree to come with me to my current place of residence, which is the place in which I currently make my home, I will supply you with necessities that you at this state, lack."

"You mean like food and water and stuff?"

I tried not to sound eager, but my mouth starting watering like crazy when images of real, fresh, steaming food danced through my head. Burgers…Coke…I was dying now.

"That is right; 'food and water and **stuff**.' " Mojo confirmed, his tone disdainful as he imitated my speech, but I couldn't miss that gleam of satisfaction in his eyes as he noticed the eagerness and longing I was trying to hide. Crap. I really needed to work on that.

Mojo stared at me and I stared at him, both of our minds whirring like overworked engines. Mojo gave me a small suggestive smile, letting go of my shirt and shrugging casually, saying with body language: "Well, what the heck?" I wasn't really too eager to trust this guy, but I was practically starving to death, and what could that crazy chimp do to me anyway? He was my original creator, and he'd spent that whole one father's day trying to prove to me and my bros that he was a worthier dad than Him because he was more evil; he must still like me, somewhat at least.

"Ok…" I breathed, my whole body relaxing, finally giving in to the bright prospect of fresh food in my grasp.

"Good, good, excellent." Mojo replied, looking almost sunny himself. And then he turned and began to walk out of the alley, whistling a merry tune. "Follow me."

I groaned. There was no way I was **walking** all the way over to his joint, so I zoomed up like a dart, seizing him under the armpits and soaring away through the sky with him, carrying him to his volcano top observa-thingy.

In no time, I spotted it and streaked down towards it, my eyes narrowing as I focused on my target.

"**STOOOPP!!!!**" Mojo bellowed just as we were about to make an entry through his roof; I just barely skidded to a shaky stop in time.

"What…?!"

"Use the front door!!" Mojo ordered exasperatedly, gesturing down towards his tall, black entrance doorway in the side of the sleek, metal dome of his lair, at the top of an immensely tall flight of narrow stone steps that led all the way down the side of the steep volcano and onto the rippling grass of Townsville Park below. I groaned but did what he said, soaring down to his front porch and dumping him in front of the door, a scowl plastered on my face as he unlocked the door with a key from his pocket and pushed it open, whistling again as he walked inside; I floated in after him with a grimace, slamming the door shut behind me.

The whole joint was domed of course, like we were inside a giant metal igloo. It was about the same temperature as an igloo too, and I felt the goose bumps rising on my arms as I landed on the hard, black sofa and sat down, my stomach growling; Mojo walked over to his fridge and started rummaging around. I stared around the lair as I waited; I'd only been there once, and that was in my first life. The whole place was pretty dim, only lit by the feeble white light pouring out of the kitchen and the eerie greenish glow of all of Mojo's machines, beeping and humming and blinking like apparatus on a UFO. Other than that, the place was heavy with inky blackness, since Mojo had all of his blinds shut on his big thick, gray tinted windows. I sat there seeing if I remembered any of this scenery from my first life, when Mojo came out of the kitchen and into the room I was in, flicking on a bright white bulb over my head, which made me feel like I was in a police interrogation room. But he was carrying a tray of food; my mouth dropped open and a thread of drool slid out of the corner. He set the tray down on my lap and I stared at it in sheer ecstasy; a big liter bottle of Coke, a package of those pizza flavored Goldfish crackers that were my favorite, a hamburger and fries (leftovers since they were cold), and one of those white cardboard packages of Chinese food. I broke out of my trance and began to wolf it all down, not really caring what I was shoving down my rat hole, only that it was real food. The whole liter of Coke vanished in about a minute, stray drops splattering my already filthy shirt, (covered with a whole bunch of wet and dry blood, plus layer after layer of green-brown grime) and I stuffed my face with whatever food I could get my paws on, crumbs cascading down my shirt and all over the sofa, the floor, and my pants. A handful of pizza Goldfish followed by a huge bite of hamburger, with a handful of cold greasy fries, and then gulping down a mouthful of egg noodles…

Then my hand reached down for more and grasped nothing; it was all gone…already? I looked up at Mojo with big eyes, and he was staring at me like I was a very strange specimen of slime mold in a lab, one of his eyes crinkled a bit at the bottom in obvious disgust. Once he saw that I noticed him, he handed me a napkin very quickly, and I wiped the food crumbs off of my face with it.

"So…" Mojo said uncomfortably, pulling a chair from a nearby cluttered desk and positioning it so that it was facing me on the sofa and he plopped down onto it, crossing his legs with stateliness. "What…?"

"…What happened to me?" I finished the sentence for him, not wanting to hear him blabber, pushing the empty tray off to the side. "Well, I've gone…. **mad**. My head hurts and I turn into this killer, and I kill people and I wake up and I don't know what I did!"

We stared at each other in silence, and all I could hear was my heavy breathing and the steady hum of Mojo's apparatus. Mojo was looking at me as if I was completely out of my mind, which I guess I was, his eyes bigger than I'd ever seen them.

"You mean you go into a trance, a hypnosis like state…"

"I think it hurts a bit much to be **hypnosis**…" I butted in.

"…Where you kill or seriously injure other specimens of humankind, otherwise endangering their lives and putting their internal balances at stake…"

"Slaughter is a bit more serious than **endangered internal balances**…" I cut in again, but he paid no attention.

"…And when you come out of, or leave this hypnosis like state, you have no recollection of the events of which your actions, while in this hypnosis like state, caused to occur?"

Motormouth.

"Yeah, I **guess**." I said, annoyed. Mojo's astounded expression suddenly melted into one of evil triumph.

"Perfect."

In the time that my annoyed face twisted into a confused one, Mojo pulled out a gun and aimed it right at me, firing it silently. A bright blue beam shot out of the end and hit me square in the chest, knocking the breath out of me and ramming me backwards like a fist until I hit the curved metal wall with an echoing bang, having knocked over the sofa and a whole bunch of other crap in the process. Before I could regain myself, Mojo yanked a thing out of his pocket that looked like a TV remote, and he pressed a button on it, cackling victoriously. A web of glowing, blue bars suddenly materialized around me, a cage, wavering and buzzing as if the bars were made of crackles of electricity or strings of blue flame. Not thinking, I threw myself against the bars with all of my might, but I bounced off of them as if I were only a tennis ball, instead of an insane kid with superpowers. This couldn't be.

"**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGGH!!!**"

I screamed in fury, ramming the bars over and over again, with my head, my leg, my elbow, only to get the same results, while Mojo doubled over with laughter on the other side of his lair, clutching his stupid remote gleefully.


	7. The Slave Drive

Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce….

This time? This time? THIS time?

I felt like a bee trapped behind a window, one that keeps charging at the invisible barrier again and again, hoping that the next try would be the lucky one; the one to take it to freedom. But I didn't actually have any hope on that subject; not like I was dumb enough. I kept on trying because I didn't believe it; I was hoping that it was all just a dream and I would wake up in my recycling bin bed if I hit my head hard enough; I'd be stiff, cold and sore, but free. I was being delusional; it's not like that would actually happen anyhow. My ignorance quickly boiled up into fury and I let loose the loudest shriek of rage that I could, throwing my body against the walls of my prison one last time. Bounce. I was once again thrown right back where I started, exhausted, disgusting, aching, and incredulous, sprawled across the cold, shiny black floor like a dead guy who'd been shot down in battle. Now officially defeated, I listened to the sound of my heavy, raspy breathing as I lay there, staring at the glowing blue-green bars of the twisting cage of electricity that surrounded me. That stupid, fucking thing from hell. I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling my stomach tighten again with rage and despair. Rotten, disgusting monkey… Betraying me like a worthless piece of CRAP… I should've guessed that he would do something like this; why was I so stupid? Well, there was nothing I could do now; I was stuck here. For God knows how long. **Shit…. **

I stared at the high, silver, domed ceiling through the stupid glowing, crackling bars of the cage, cursing that chimp to the deepest, darkest depths of hell, when I heard tapping footsteps echoing on the smooth floor and I sat up immediately, hitting my head on the roof of my cage. Bounce.

And it was that same damn chimp who'd done this to me in the first place. Mojo Jojo; standing less than three feet from my prison, a horrible haughty expression on his stupid mug. I sat up again, this time more slowly, and growled at him, trying to bore my eyes into him like I was trying to impale him with them. The rage boiled inside of me until I let out a thundering roar like a lion and charged for him, only to bounce off of the cage bars and tumble back onto the floor, just like all those other times. As I rubbed my throbbing head, snarling ferociously, Mojo laughed softly. The nerve of that ass. My eyes snapped open and I glared at him as viciously as I could, wishing my gaze would melt him into a smelly green puddle, and then I would splash in it and stomp on it until it was gone.

We stared at each other for a few moments, Mojo smug and smiling down at me, horribly triumphant, and I enraged, my teeth clenched in what I hoped was the most brutal snarl ever, my eyes twitching with fury.

"Why did you…why…?!" I burst out, stammering in my anger and disbelief.

"Yes?" Mojo replied cheerfully. He was doing his best to get a reaction out of me; I could tell.

"Why'd you even **do** this to me?!" I hollered, my eyes flashing and my livid voice echoing off of the glossy, black walls and hovering in the icy cold air. "I thought you gave a damn about me!"

"And what in all of your few experiences and in your primitive and inaccurate processor in your lump you call a brain caused you to think that?" Mojo asked calmly. Clever move. But I ground my teeth and held in the storm of cuss words and curses that threatened to burst out of my mouth.

"**Weeeell**…." I sarcastically stretched the word. "You spent that **whole stupid Father's** **Day** fighting over **me and my brothers**; against that badass Him."

"That is very true, and in other words, those are the exact events that occurred at that place and time."

I rolled my eyes.

"But you are missing one very important detail without which the whole entire story makes no sense what so ever!" Mojo continued, raising his voice a bit and crossing his arms irritably. "Because you and the boys whom you call your brothers were not present at the time at which that very important detail without which the whole entire story makes no sense **occurred**! And since your body was not present at the precise time and place at which the very important detail without which the whole entire story does not make sense occurred, you did not witness the crucial event, therefore the story, of course, makes no sense what so ever to you!"

"I get the point." I grumbled. "Just tell me what the stupid event is, then."

"You and those dimwits you call your brothers did not agree with me, therefore you did not side with my arguments and defenses! You favored the arguments and defenses of that scoundrel, Him, not the arguments and defenses of poor, poor Mojo, who was your original creator, and the source of the originality which lead to the creation of you."

He shook his head as my mouth dropped open so far that my jaw probably hit the floor. On that Father's Day, Him and Mojo had been yelling their heads off at each other, because they were both fighting over who was our real dad. So they did a whole bunch of weird stuff to prove to me and my bros who was eviler (not like we cared). It was cool at first, when we rode in that big ol' pickle balloon thing and when we got to command this freakin' huge battle robot, but then it started to get old. So Brick yelled at them like usual and told them that we didn't care who was eviler, and we went away.

"We didn't favor that damn lobster lady-man **bitch**!!" I yelled, feelings of hatred towards Him igniting inside of me, as if lighter fluid had been thrown on old ashes.

"You are not understanding what I am trying to tell to you, boy!" Mojo screamed. "Him told to me after you had left our presence that he had taken you into his care and that you were now taking up residence in his **home**." Mojo sneered that last word. "You were already in his possession and I had lost the whole entire argument on which I had expelled all of my energy on during the whole course of the day!"

I didn't know what to say; my words were caught in my throat. My brothers and I had been brought into our 2nd and current life by Him, who had revived us inside his house; hell, actually. (So I really **was** born in hell) But he was nothing but a huge bitch that used us and beat us like pack animals. (Thank god we'd destroyed him) I'd much rather live with Mojo if I'd had to choose between them.

"**We didn't like Him better**!" I cried out, my voice strangled in desperation. "**That bitch beat us to bloody pulps, for Pete's sake! More than once! He almost fucking KILLED my brother!! **And he spanked my ass…." The details of that lovely incident sprang back into my mind and stuck out their tongues at me.

"You are the boys of that horrible, damn devil creature." Mojo stated as if it were carved in stone. "You are no sons of mine."

And he turned and strode out of the room, his long, purple velvet cape billowing behind him, until he vanished through the far doorway and was swallowed up by the heavy darkness.

**************************

I felt as lost as heck that night; even worse then I'd felt that first night on my own, when I'd met that bum guy in the alley. It was impossible to sleep; the floor was hard as hell and ice cold, the machines in the place were beeping and humming and clanking annoyingly, the crickets were chirping an earsplitting, out of tune sonata, and Mojo was snoring like a huge wood chipper. So I sat with my butt frozen and numb on the floor, my eyes wide open, staring through the buzzing and twisting electric bars of my cage and looking out a window that was on the other side of the pitch black room (ok; so a little bit of green glow from my cage and the machines was there…) Out the long, oval shaped, darkly tinted window, I could see the Townsville skyline, sparkling and shimmering, and the starry sky above it, twinkling like little winking eyes. A feeling of icy cold dread and hopelessness suddenly gripped my gut; it was as if those happy, winking stars were mocking me. They were as free as you could imagine, scattered billions of light-years away from each other, sparking like gems and fearlessly roaming the universe like it was their backyard, while I was shut up in a little tiny, electric cage that I couldn't even stand up in; like a stupid hamster or something. And no one cared; not my brothers, not my dad (he wouldn't if he wasn't destroyed), not even Professor or…Buttercup. The dams blocking my tear ducts suddenly burst, and my wide empty eyes were suddenly flooding with hot tears; silent hot tears. I just sat there, in the exact same position, staring blankly out the window like a lost soul, fat, glittering tears oozing out of my wide eyes and running thickly down my face, splattering my clothes and the glossy floor. And I couldn't stop; I just couldn't. I'd always been able to restrain my tears before, so I wouldn't look like a blithering idiot, but this time I couldn't; it was like I didn't even have control over myself anymore. I guess I didn't anyways. And as I was realizing that, my head slumped over and I collapsed onto the floor in a blubbering heap, as if Professor Lockhart from Harry Potter had just removed all of my bones by accident. I stayed like that for the rest of the night, sprawled on my side, my eyes staring like blank TVs, my hair flopping this way and that, covered all over with bloodstains and filth, and tears crawling on my skin like little ants.

*****************************

I was running and running and running, over a never ending, flat white plain that looked sort of like a giant piece of blank paper, and ghostly, white mist hung in the air like a thick blanket. One leg in front of the other, foom foom foom… but it was weird; I couldn't even hear any sound as my feet thumped on the ground. It was perfectly silent. My breath was coming fast and raspy, and my hair was blowing gently in the soft air. I was running like a maniac, as fast as I could, but I didn't seem to be moving a darn inch; the scenery around me wasn't changing. Panic started to blossom inside of me, but then I saw a figure float out the mist, a good distance in front of me; it was Buttercup. My pounding heart stopped completely; she looked like a saint, her short hair billowing angelically around her sunny, beautifully smiling face, her crystal green eyes twinkling like stars and her dress flowing like air. Her glistening eyes met mine and her already sunny face brightened up drastically, and then she threw her arms out in my direction; my mouth dropped open. And then I ran faster, my legs thrashing as fast as I could move them; zoom zoom zoom. Sweat broke out on my face and the wind buffeted me like heck, but I still wasn't going anywhere. Buttercup remained the same distance away. I started to panic, dashing faster and faster and faster still, until…a burning pain sliced into my head like a gigantic knife, and it threw me off of my feet as if it were a physical force. I slammed into the ground on my face, after sailing through the air and flailing my arms and screaming like an idiot. I struggled to get back on my feet, my breath stuck in my throat, but the pain burned me in a big horrible burst; I shrieked and collapsed back onto the floor. And before I could restart my heart, it was upon me, scorching my whole body like a billion fire ants biting me all over, like I was being burned to a crisp in an oven… I couldn't feel; I couldn't see…

********************

_The little black haired boy sat up like a zombie awakening from the dead, his emerald eyes glinting evilly and a huge, demented grin on his face. But it faded almost immediately when he saw where he was; in a tiny cage with bolt of twisting and buzzing eerie blue electricity for bars. His mind flew into a rage and he lost it; he started throwing himself wildly against the bars, screaming shrilly and madly as he did. But no matter how hard the boy tried, he couldn't break through; every time he touched the bars, he bounced off of them and was thrown back onto the hard, smooth floor. He couldn't…Why couldn't he? The boy shrieked in pure fury and jerked his hands up to his head, seizing two handfuls of his hair and ripping them out, almost thirsting for the stinging pain. His mind engulfed with unfathomable ferocity, he jerked his head down like a striking cobra and sunk his teeth into his own arm, growling like a tiger with rabies, ripping through the filthy sleeve and tearing into the skin, shining red drops of blood spurting out. He pulled his head away from his skin and laughed dementedly at the scarlet rivers oozing out if his arm and dripping to the floor, the injury burning with agony. The boys hissed like a snake and opened his bloody mouth wide, but before his could bite himself again, there was a fizzing sound and then a pop, and the electrical cage bars vanished; the boy was free. He leapt to his feet immediately and cackled evilly, his eyes flashing a sinister burgundy, ignoring the warm blood trickling from the bite on his arm. Then he heard soft pattering footsteps approaching him out of the blackness and he froze, his crazed eyes fixed on that patch of black in the pitch dark room with its high, domed ceiling. And his father stepped into the silvery moonlight that spilled through one of the long, oval shaped, dark windows on the other side of the room and washed onto the patch of glossy black floor where the boy stood. His father was beaming proudly at him, a promising gleam in his eyes; the boy's face lit up into a sinister smile, and his body began to twitch uncontrollably. _

"_What's we gonna do Daddy-O? What's we gonna do Daddy-O? What's we gonna do Daddy-O? What's we gonna do Daddy-O? What's we gonna do Daddy-O?" the black haired boy chanted, his tongue dangling out of the corner of his mouth and his emerald eyes gleaming evilly in the pale beam of moonlight illuminating his crazy face. _

"_I have a task of which you must accompany me on, my dear boy." The boy's father, Mojo Jojo, said calmly and kindly. The boy clapped his hands together, chuckling in a high and psychotic tone, his whole face brightening and his head nodding very quickly. "We are going to rob a bank, son." _

"_BANK!!" the boy screeched, jumping up and down, and his eyes sparkling. _

"_Yes…" Mojo said coolly. "And I need you to help me take out the ones who try to stop us, in others words, get in our way and try to keep us from achieving what we wish to achieve. Can you do that?"_

_The boy nodded even faster, the black spikes of hair on his head flopping back and forth. _

"_Good; very, very good. Let us go, then?" Mojo gestured in the darkness, towards his front door, a smile on his face. The emerald eyed boy let out a shout of delight, seized his father by the hand, and took off in a bright streak of green, zooming up, crashing through the black, domed roof of Mojo's hideout and zooming into the vast night sky that stretched into infinity above them, washed with swirling inky blackness and scattered with twinkling stars, glistening and glittering like diamond dust. Mojo glanced exasperatedly back at the dark, gaping hole in his ceiling as he and the black haired boy soared over the glittering night cityscape, the cool, fresh night air curling around them; Mojo would have to fix his ceiling __**again**__. He sighed softly, hoping the emerald eyed boy wouldn't notice. _

*****************************

I awoke with a start, almost as if the stupid alarm clock in our room had gone off, announcing the beginning of another rotten school day. Another Monday? Groan groan groan…. I shakily sat up, annoyed, and when my eyes opened and I saw where I was, despair clouded over me again; I was still in the electric cage, sitting in Mojo's gloomy hideout. I'd rather be going to school than still be locked up in this hellhole; now that's saying something. I yawned, rubbing my eyes, and looked around. It looked like early morning, judging by the faint, light glowing in the light navy sky out the big, oval shaped windows; maybe like 5 o' clock. In the morning. Groan groan **groan**… The fatigue tugged at my heavy eyelids and my tired, aching body, so I lay back down on the hard floor and curled up, trying to get back to sleep. But after I got myself settled, my eyes popped open and I sat up in a swift, fluid movement and scanned the lair in awe, my eyes huge and confused. The whole place looked as if it had been flooded…with cold hard cash. All the bills formed a huge green sea that coated the whole rotten place from top to bottom; there were also stacks and stacks of shining coins. Mojo was living in a goldmine! A look of incredulity and suspicion washed over my face; just where the heck did Mojo get all this cash?! A really gigantic bank account withdrawal? No; since when did Mojo the Motormouth ever keep his bucks in the bank? He was always robbing the bank!

Before I had the chance to think any more, in came Mojo, from his bedroom door, humming cheerfully and eyeing all of his money with satisfaction. He stopped right in front of my cage, put his hands on his hips, sighed deeply and deliberately (as if he were sniffing the aroma of all of the money) and looked right at me, a smug smile on his filthy face. I shot him an evil glare, complete with narrow menacing eyes and a ferocious snarl. Was he trying to annoy me on purpose? Probably.

"Mojo had an extremely successful night on the night before this day, and it was full of large amounts of success." Mojo boasted, still looking at me in that funny way.

"I can see that." I muttered under my breath. And we stared at each other for a few moments; Mojo still with that weird look on his face.

"Geez; will you STOP DOING THAT?!" I burst out, irritated. "You're freaking me out!"

Mojo grinned; it was an evil grin.

"I owe you a big statement of gratitude, boy, for one only gets big statements of gratitude when they have assisted someone else in a very helpful matter, and that is what you have done for me. "

I just blinked at him stupidly.

"What..??"

"I owe my night of success wholly and completely to you; without you my night of success could not have occurred, and therefore I owe you a grand statement of gratitude."

"English please."

Mojo groaned and said very simply:

"You are the reason for my success."

Those seven words hit me like a tsunami; I froze, stock still, my eyes wide and blank and staring straight forward.

"**WHAT?!!!"** I broke out of my state of stupor with bewilderment. Mojo's mouth curled into a horrible smile; he was enjoying this, that smutty creep. "What do you…? How…? I mean I was just sleeping here…And…What…?"

Somewhere in my idiotic rant, the truth hit me with the force of several tons of concrete. I'd gone insane again, probably when I was asleep, and somehow my insane self had helped him rob the bank or something. Oh my God.

"No…this can't be happening…I…I was..UUUHH!" I broke down on that last word, throwing my hands over my face and curling up into a little ball, like one of those pill bug things that Bubbles hated. And I just lay there, screaming and screaming and screaming; Mojo was using me. And I wouldn't know what horrible thing he'd made me do until I woke up. Maybe he'd make me hurt the Mayor, or my brothers, or…..Buttercup. I started to hyperventilate. The image of Buttercup, all twisted and broken and spurting blood everywhere burst into my head and flashed at me like a neon sign. I shrieked like a mad banshee, my hands snaking up to my head and gripping some of my spiky hair as my whole body writhed and thrashed; there was a sudden pain like a flash of fire and a ripping sound and my hands were full of loose, disheveled black hair. My mind was lost in the cloud of horror and disbelief; I started to throw myself against the bars of my cage again, just like I had when I'd first gotten caught. Bounce, bounce, bounce.

"NO!!" Bounce, bounce. "NO!" Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce. "NO! NO! NO!" Bounce. "**NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**" Zap. Now I definitely hadn't been expecting that. Pain coursed through my writhing body like a white hot snake as I was shocked with millions of volts of zapping electricity, (Ok; not millions…) and I was screaming and screeching like a mad person, which I guess I was. Officially. When I hit the floor with a crash, dazed and hurting like heck from the shock, I began to tremble uncontrollably, hot tears bursting from my eyes and pouring down my gritty face like a waterfall. How…? How could this be happening to me? I just lay there for God knows how long, bawling and crying and weeping and snorting, and Mojo just left, satisfied.

********************************

Do you think this is bad? Well, you better. And get this; as impossible as it seems, it got worse. Mojo kept on making me do stuff, mainly hold up joints like the jewelry shop and the museum, but once he took me to rob a bakery because he was all out of his favorite rolls. Jerkwad. And did I get anything?; heck no. I'm the one starving and locked up 24/7 in a stupid, tiny cage, and I don't even get any food? You can imagine that scene; Mojo reclining in his easy chair and eating his rolls, listening to classical music, while I was giving him looks of death and cursing him under my breath, my stomach rumbling like an earthquake, and my whole body hurting from being cramped up in that minuscule cage for too long.

One thing I thought was weird was that we never seemed to run into the Powerpuff Girls (and my two brothers) when we were on our little criminal escapades. Why weren't they ever around?; as far as I knew, the Powerpuff Girls were always around when bad guys were doing their stuff. Did they know what situation I was in, anyway? Did Buttercup know? I hoped she wasn't still mad at me for freaking her out. During those long, endless, cold nights of gloom and doom and captivity, I couldn't stop my mind from wandering to her. I dwelled on it all; her punches, her kicks, her sarcastic jokes, her blankie, the way her eyes sparkled when she was truly happy… I usually broke down at this point, and my eyes would flood with tears; how long had it been since I'd seen Buttercup? How long had I been a prisoner in this stupid cage? How long had it been since I'd eaten like a pig at Bravo Burgers? (a vivid memory of a 'how many hamburgers can you eat' contest between me and Bubbles came into focus in my head; it had ended with Bubbles having to visit the pediatrician.) How long had it been since my life was normal? Well; normal for me anyways… Would it be like this forever? At that prospect I completely and totally broke down; to the point where I had to wring out my shirt and buckets of salty tears squirted out. At least it washed out some of that crap on it; blood, dirt, vomit… etc.(you don't want any more details on this.)

So yeah; you probably get the point. (if you don't, I'll hunt you down and smack you) My life in Mojo's slave drive sucked crap. I seriously didn't think it was capable of getting any worse. But boy, was I ever wrong.

******************************

It was just another day in the hamster cage, just laying there on my back like a useless lump, staring at the same old ceiling like a blithering idiot. I couldn't feel my extremities; my arms and legs were like worthless, aching lumps of meat, tortured with shooting pain from being cramped up for so long. I thought about the good old days where I would be running free like a maniac, loading myself with sugar and playing video games with Buttercup and pigging out at Bravo Burgers and just being me. I glanced through the crackling bars of my cage out one of the big, oval windows; it was a wonderful day, the sun shining like a golden lava lamp, the sky was wide and clear as a clean windshield, the skyscrapers glittering like toys in the light, and the green trees rustling gently from the refreshing spring breeze. Despair clutched at me again, so I rolled over on my side and pressed my cheek to the hard, cold floor, every inch of my body throbbing with dull, burning pain; I couldn't stand looking outside when I was stuck in this hellhole, like a goldfish in a clear tank. My stomach was almost constantly growling; Mojo was starving me. And I wasn't exaggerating the least bit; I couldn't even remember the last time I had eaten. Grroowwwll… My stomach rumbled like an engine almost, aching with empty hunger; I clutched it and squeezed my eyes shut, the pain almost overwhelming me for a second. Rowdyruff Boy indeed….the sarcastic voice in the back of my head sneered. You're breaking down from just laying there in that cage like a pathetic lump? Loser. I'm not a loser; I'm not, I protested. I just can't… My throat seized up and I started to cry again; I didn't even try to hold this in anymore. Who the heck was there to care, anyway? And when the burning pain suddenly erupted in my head and began its usual crushing thing, I didn't even care. I just lay there, my body twisting and jerking with no feeling, almost oblivious to the whole thing as the fiery pain enveloped me like a twig in a bonfire. Who cares…who cares…

*************************

_The black haired boy sat up like a rigid board, his eyes alight with that usual malicious, crazed glow. But his face fell when he saw where he was; that stupid, glowy cage again. His face twisted with fury, he yelled at the top of his lungs:_

"_DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!"_

_And the cage vanished with a little 'pfft'. The boy smiled his mad and toothy smile, jumping to his feet and scampering across the room like a rodent, his spiky black hair bouncing as he did. _

"_Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad!" he yelled, bouncing up and down impatiently, his limbs twitching and jerking frenziedly. Mojo stepped out of the kitchen door and strode into the room towards his crazy little son, looking purely overjoyed. _

"_I have something very fun and enjoyable for us to do at this current time!" Mojo exclaimed, his finger pointed and his hand held up in an exclamatory gesture. The black haired boy's emerald eyes bugged out and his tongue lolled out of his mouth as he began to pant, almost like a dog. _

"_What? What? What? What?" _

"_We're going to…litter the park!"_

_The boy's face fell. _

"_**That's not fun!**__" he complained, slumping his shoulders like an exhausted gorilla. _

"_Why, yes it will be, my dear boy…" Mojo leaned down so that his face was right next to the side of the boy's head and he whispered something; the boy's frown curled into a sinister, demented smirk as he listened. _

"_Hee hee hee hee; let's GO!" the boy screeched right after Mojo had told him the whole plan; Mojo beamed proudly, snatched a big trash bag full of garbage, and grabbed onto the boy's hand. The boy laughed dementedly and took off like a green firework sparkler, speeding towards the curved, dark roof and the clear, sunny skies above it._

"_STOP!!" Mojo suddenly burst out, sounding desperate and throwing out his free hand frantically; the boy shuddered to a halt, stopping only inches away from the roof. He threw a puzzled glance back at Mojo, who looked nothing short of exasperated. _

"_Please do not crash though Mojo's roof..." Mojo pleaded, speaking very quickly with a soft, high voice and jabbing his finger down towards the front door. The boy obediently flew down and crashed through the door and burst into the warm, pleasant spring air, laughing joyfully, his eyes sparkling dementedly. Mojo groaned, slapping his forehead with his free hand; now he had a door to fix instead of his roof. _

_After a short trip through the balmy skies, the boy and Mojo landed in the middle of the massive, green fields of Townsville Park, the pungent odor of freshly cut grass lingering in the lukewarm air. The boy immediately got to work; he snatched the bag out of Mojo's hand and tore some trash out, throwing it high into the air like confetti and cheering. Mojo took some trash and spread it across the grass while the emerald eyed boy continued to toss it into the air in a green blur, playing catch and kickball with some of the big pieces. Mojo grinned as he watched his son and littered the field with a carpet of junk, keeping a watchful eye on the clear, crystal blue sky. And sure enough, after a few minutes, Mojo saw what he was looking for; five vivid streaks of light zooming up out from behind the distant, glittering city skyline and soaring like jet planes towards them; one streak pink, one light blue, one light green, and one red. Perfect. _

_A few more minutes and the four approaching streaks reached the wide skies high over Townville Park, curving downward and zooming down through the balmy air towards the grassy ground, and the litterers that they were after. _

"_Here they come!" Mojo shouted excitedly to his son, who immediately stopped throwing trash and twisted his head up toward the incoming streaks, a huge, menacing grin plastered on his face. Before the four figures even touched the grass, the green eyed boy hit them all with his laser eye beams, throwing them all off course; they staggered to the ground dizzily. When the smoke from the lasers cleared, all four newcomers' eyes fell upon the black haired boy and they gasped in unison; the boy laughed delightedly, recognizing these people as well. They were a redheaded boy with a backwards red baseball cap and a long ponytail, a redheaded girl with pink eyes and a large red bow, a black haired girl with brilliant light green eyes, and a girl with bouncy blonde pigtails and sky blue eyes. The black haired boy charged at them, still smirking, but they scattered and got out of harm's way just in time. _

"_Remember the plan!" the redheaded girl shouted to her companions in the moment of the black haired boy's confusion. What the plan was, the emerald eyed boy didn't care; he flew like a comet at the blonde girl, swinging his fist at her in an attempted punch. She ducked, her pigtails flying, and she countered with a sharp kick that caught the boy haired boy in the stomach. Then a jet of crackling, yellow zapped through the air and nearly hit the blonde girl; she shrieked and leapt out of the way, her head swiveling around to see who her attacker was as soon as she was out of range of the laser. Mojo stood there, cackling and cocking a bright red laser gun into the sky. He then swung around and fired his gun at the redheaded boy, who wasn't paying attention at the moment; the boy was too busy staring in awe and bewilderment at the emerald eyed boy, who was jumping up and down, beating his chest like a gorilla and howling in delight. _

"_Brick!!" the redheaded girl screamed, throwing her hand out in horror. But it was too late; by the time Brick turned in her direction, his expression confused, the blinding beam of jagged light had reached him, hitting him squarely in the chest and knocking the air out of him. He grunted and crumpled to the ground like a bird shot by a hunter; he tumbled onto the rippling grass and lay motionless, his baseball cap askew. The redheaded girl gasped in horror, but she left Brick there; she now had a good idea of what she was up against. _

"_Don't let that laser hit you!" she ordered, and then she twisted around in midair, her long ponytail swirling like a cape, and she dive bombed down through the sky, right at Mojo, who laughed and aimed his gun at her. Just as he pulled the trigger with an electrical zapping sound, the redheaded girl rolled in midair, twisting out of range; the yellow beam hit a nearby oak tree that exploded in a cloud of thick, acrid smoke as if it had been hit by lightning, scattering the surrounding grass with fragments of wood and other debris. The redhead motioned for the blonde girl to join her, and the girl obeyed, zooming downward and lunging at Mojo as the redhead did the same. Soon, both girls were zooming in circles around Mojo like large, multicolored flies; he fired his gun randomly at them, irritated. _

_The crazy black haired boy cackled happily and stepped towards his father, going to help, when he was seized from behind by a strong hand and rammed face first into the grass. Sputtering and panting and his eyes flashing madly, the boy propped himself up with his arms and spun his head around to see who his attacker was; it was the black haired girl, who was standing a few feet behind him, breathing heavily, her fists held up in front of her in a defensive pose and her knees bent, her light green eyes narrowed and her teeth gritted, her short black hair whipping in the breeze. A challenge; the emerald eyed boy sprang back onto his feet, smirking with glee, and then he threw a powerful punch at the brunette's face. She blocked it expertly and immediately with one arm, and then she aimed a jabbing kick at him at the same time. It hit him in the knee, knocking him off his feet and sending him sprawling through the air, his eyes wide in bafflement. Then the brunette joined her hands together in front of her and shot a green burst of light energy from them, heading straight at the spinning black haired boy, who quickly joined his own hands together; there was an electric crackling sound and a green, glowing sphere formed around him, the brunette's beam bouncing harmlessly off of it and hitting the grass, frying it to a charred black heap. The black haired boy giggled triumphantly and thumped on his feet onto the grassy ground; the brunette hit him with her green laser eye beams before he could think, knocking him flat onto his back with a grunt of pain. She then rushed at him in a green blur, zooming over him, her right arm drawn back in an incoming punch; the boy on the ground threw up his arms and blocked her at the last second, snarling like an animal, his eyes and his hair wild. Their arms pressed tightly against each other, the two kids pushed and pushed, like a shoving match, one attempting to overpower the other. And suddenly the brunette froze, her eyes widening as she stared down at the demented boy struggling underneath her; she stopped fighting altogether for a second, but that second was enough. The boy rammed his arms against hers as hard as he could, letting out a warrior cry as he did; she was knocked backward, sailing through the air like a green ping pong ball and crashing onto the grass like a falling meteorite. And before she could blink, the crazy boy was upon her, pummeling every inch of her that he could reach; punch, kick, slap, kick, zap; it was all a green blur. Harder, faster… The crazy boy began to cackle like a mad chimpanzee, his emerald eyes alight with a malicious, demented glow. More blood…more…more…_

_*****************************_

I groaned, stretching out my aching arms and legs; there was a loud crack as I felt my elbows pop. Yawning, I opened my heavy eyes and scanned my surroundings, slumping dejectedly when I saw that I was still in the same cage, in Mojo's stupid hideout, and it was still sunny and beautiful outside. Damn. Muttering under my breath, I reached up with my hands to rub my face, and I froze like a Popsicle; my hands were covered in blood. There was a high pitched scream that tore the air, and it took me a second to realize that it was mine.

"Holy sh…**what the heck happened**!?" I screeched.

"I believe that I can answer that."

I spun around with a terrified expression that immediately faded into a furious one when I saw who was standing next to my cage, a horribly triumphant look plastered on his face.

"Wha…??"

Mojo shoved a newspaper that he had been holding in his hand, though the bars and it snatched it, my jaw dropping open and my eyes widening to the size of moons when I saw the cover photo.

It was Buttercup, and she was in the hospital. (I hate hospitals) But that wasn't the worst of it; her face was a blotchy mess, so cut up, swollen, and bandaged that you could barely see any of her skin. Beside her bed, the others stood, Boomer, still dressed in his hospital gown with the bandage still on his chest and in a wheelchair, Blossom and Bubbles, both in tears, and Brick, looking horrified, a bandage wrapped around his head. Since when had he had that there? The large, blaring article title read: _Buttercup Utonium seriously injured in battle_.

My heart lurched; I was too stunned to move. I turned my head slowly towards Mojo, my body shaking.

"Is this….??" My voice was trembling and abnormally high pitched. And then I broke down, bawling like a little baby and rolling all over the floor like a suffocating fish. It couldn't be….No…

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Mojo laughing, Buttercup's blood on my hands…I couldn't live like this anymore. My brain crashing like a computer, my hand grabbed hold of the skin on my arm in a green flash and yanked fiercely; I screamed crazily and there was a white hot flash of agony, and then blood was gushing from the huge gash in my arm, the skin literally torn away like paper.

Mojo's smile disappeared and a look of complete terror replaced it.

Before I knew what was happening, there was a horrible slash of pain and my leg was bleeding as well. Shrieking like a banshee, I reached for my uninjured arm and then…

There was a loud bang and I was on my face on the floor, acrid smoke billowing through the air. Noo…Noo…

And then I was out.


End file.
